Blue Moon
by WasabiLemon
Summary: Sora, a recently chosen slayer with a knack for running into trouble, finds himself growing closer to the gifted vampire Riku and the rest of his family, despite their unsavory tendencies; however, his association with the powerful vampiric bloodline eventually draws the ire of the ancient organization that dominates vampiric conduct...
1. Luna

**Wheee, another fic! With vampires. The product of a demented mind, supplemented by reading too much KH stuff and watching too many Buffy reruns. **

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. Chars all belong to Squeenix. Loosely (and I mean super loosely) based on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which I also don't own. Le sad. :(**

**M for language (probably), possible gore and violence, and future yaoi-ness. If you can't handle part of that, then don't read, little buddies!**

"_Leaving, as the moon releases_

_Twig by twig the night entangled trees,_

_Leaving, as the moon behind winter leaves,_

_Memory by memory…"_

_--Archibald MacLeish, Ars Poetica_

_

* * *

_

Sora strode through the graveyard, humming to himself lightly. In one hand he held a sharpened wooden stake, and in the other, a Snickers bar. The chestnut haired boy wore long baggy shorts, fingerless gloves, and a tight black shirt-- what he had deemed his 'Super-Ultra-Fantastic-Slaying Outfit'. He perched himself on the edge of a raised tomb, sighing in boredom.

"Well, Sora, how was your night?" he asked himself with mock enthusiasm, all too aware of how pathetic this would seem to a passerby. "Not so good, Sora. I spent at least three hours wandering around in the dark, I stubbed my toe twice, my stake gave me a splinter, and I only have one dead vamp to show for it," he answered himself with a frown. He took a large, angry bite out of his candy bar and chewed it slowly, slouching over with a sigh. He swung his feet back and forth slowly, scraping his heels along the smooth side of the tomb.

"Look on the bright side," a smooth, accented voice from behind him whispered. "At least you're not dead."

Sora whirled around, pushing himself off of the grave and turning to face the man in one fluid movement. His sapphire blue eyes narrowed, tinged with anger and a tiny, uncontrollable amount of fear.

"Yet, I mean," the voice continued, a sneer evident in the tone. The speaker edged his way from the darkness into the moonlight, a confident smirk lighting over his features. "I suppose you might as well be pessimistic. I wouldn't blame you for it, with you constantly being on the verge of death and all," he said with a soft smile, placing one hand against a crumbling grave marker and leaning casually against it.

"Well, if it isn't Riku," Sora said shakily, trying to hide the nervous anxiety in his voice. "Again." He recalled his memories of the unpleasantly familiar figure in front of him; inhuman aqua eyes that nearly glowed in the night, a lithe, muscular body that was well adapted for fighting and killing, a silky voice that had lured innumerable victims to their deaths, and a set of lethal teeth that now shone tauntingly at the Slayer.

"You remembered my name," the vampire smiled, his cold eyes glinting in the pale light. "I'm flattered. But, unfortunately for you, that doesn't change my cause for coming here. It's been a while, Slayer."

"Not long enough," the brunette said sullenly, alternately tightening and loosening his grip on the stake. He shifted anxiously in place; Riku's actions --or lack thereof-- unnerved him. The first time they had fought, the silver haired vampire made a showy entrance and a hasty introduction before attacking him suddenly with ferocity unmatched by any others that Sora had faced. It had taken the brunette over a week to fully heal. The second time, Riku had crept up behind him, coming dangerously close to succeeding in ripping out the Slayer's throat. Both times, Sora had ended up the worse off of the two; it was only fate (and a conveniently timed sunrise once) that spared him. Riku wasn't usually so leisurely.

"Really? I rather missed you," Riku said innocently. The effect was marred by the ivory fangs that were displayed in his smile. "Other humans aren't near as fun. Besides, you know what they say-- the third time's the charm." He winked.

"Perhaps I should introduce you to Mr. Pointy," Sora said flatly, sticking one hand into the oversized pocket of his shorts and withdrawing an equally oversized stake. He brandished it menacingly.

"That looks like part of a picket fence." Riku straightened himself and brushed his hands against his creamy white shirt-- its sleeves did little to hide the muscled biceps that they covered. "If you really think a bigger stake will help you this time, go for it. I'll still have my fun."

"Yeah? Like I haven't heard that line before. Puh-lease. You vamps just say that to cover up your intense fear," Sora practically shouted, waving a stake wildly in each hand. The poor Snickers bar had been abandoned long ago, and now laid forlornly in the dirt. "Mr. Pointy is not to be taken lightly."

"Mr. Pointy, hm? Well, they may not be as big, but I've got two Mr. Pointies that are just as deadly," he murmured, running a pale tongue slowly over his teeth. "But I think you already know that, yes?" Riku's spectral eyes flitted from Sora's face to his left shoulder, where he had once managed to bite the boy. He knew that the scar must still be there. He smirked, his upper lip just barely exposing the sharp teeth behind it.

Sora snarled at the verbal jab. "Don't think you'll get that lucky again."

"It wasn't luck. God knows Lady Luck's never been fair to me. It was skill on my part, and lax defense on yours," Riku seethed. "I wouldn't chalk it up to chance, if I were you. That kind of ignorance is precisely why wars are lost."

"Then you should be happy; it's to your advantage."

"Happy? That you would ruin a wonderful fight against me with your stupidity? No. I don't want to beat a weakling. There's no sport in killing a Slayer that way." Riku took a step forward, thumbs hooked in his pockets. Sora took a startled, stumbling step back.

"Scared, Slayer? Where'd that delightfully cocky attitude go?" the vampire stalked his way slowly toward Sora, his lustrous eyes catching the faint light and reflecting it in the darkness. "No idiotic quips? No snide remarks? My fondest memories of our earlier fights all included your constant chatter. Even when you were broken, up against a wall, clawing and struggling for escape, you still managed to make conversation. I found it pleasant and enjoyable, Slayer."

"Maybe that's why I'm not doing it now," Sora said lowly. He shifted his weight forward, ready to attack at a moment's notice. "You're not going to get anything pleasurable or fun out of me."

"I highly doubt that," Riku whispered, his voice tinged with dark amusement. He pulled his hands out of his pockets, letting them hang limply at his sides. Sora tensed at the movement, preparing himself for the strike he felt was imminent.

"Two teenagers, alone in a graveyard at half-past midnight. What's going on here?" an authoritative voice boomed. A flashlight was aimed in Sora's face, then in Riku's. "Gang fight? Destruction of public and private property? Drug deal? …Prostitution?"

Sora could have died.

"Oh, no, not at all, sir," Riku purred to the police officer, slowly tearing his eyes from the brunette. "We were just talking. We're friends. Right, Sora?" The vampire arched an eyebrow and grinned.

Sora bit his lip, despising the sound of his name on Riku's tongue. "That's right," Sora muttered to the officer, nodding. First and foremost, he wanted that cop out of here. Riku was strong enough and fast enough to kill the man in the blink of an eye. The officer would never know what hit him, unless Riku decided to draw it out for his own personal enjoyment. Sora grimaced. "We're friends. W-we were just talking… in a cemetery. At night. Like... normal kids. Y-yep, just talking."

"About what?" the cop asked suspiciously, shining the flashlight directly in Sora's eyes and making him wince.

'_Stupid, stubborn idiot. Could he possibly screw me over any more?'_ Sora thought with agitation. He spared a quick glance at Riku, who was watching the proceedings with infinite amusement. He leaned against a tree, his ashen arms crossed and his head tilted curiously. The wind ruffled his hair and clothing, pulling at the hem of his milky, spotless shirt; his dark, clinging pants let his lower half mesh with the thick darkness.

"About… s-school," Sora lied. Badly.

"School? He can't still be in high school," the officer grumbled, now shining the light in Riku's face.

The vampire flinched slightly from the intense light, only keeping one eye slightly open. "He's right, sir," Riku said mockingly. "I failed a few times, that's all."

"How many is a few?"

"Three," Riku lied, not missing a beat. "Is there a law against that?"

"No, but there should be," the man muttered under his breath. The officer continued cursing quietly about brats that wasted his tax money, unaware that both of the boys in front of him had exceptional hearing and were listening to every word.

"Is that all, officer?" Riku asked politely. Sora thanked God that the vampire hadn't snapped the man's neck yet.

"Not quite. Something smells fishy about this. I don't trust you," the policeman said accusatorily, pointing at Sora. "Get in the car. We're going downtown."

The brunette's jaw dropped. "You! Me? I-I-what do you mean? What for? I can't go to the police station! They'll put that on my school record!" He flapped his arms at the injustice. "What about him, huh? Why doesn't he have to go? Look at him! He's evil!"

"I resent that," Riku said indignantly, looking affronted. It was an act-- Sora sourly noted the smile in the vampire's glowing eyes. The Slayer watched him from over his shoulder the entire time he was being led to the back and white police car.

Riku smiled at him, revealing the teeth that he had kept carefully hidden from the police officer's sight. He leaned forward and made a show of slowly licking his lips as Sora stood next to the car.

'_If Riku had wanted to kill me, just now would have been the perfect opportunity,'_ he thought, puzzled. _'The cop meant nothing. That would never stop him from doing what he wanted.'_ Sora had the distinct feeling that he was being toyed with.

"See you soon," the vampire whispered, his voice carried to Sora by the wind. The words made Sora shudder; it was as if Riku was beside him, his breathy whisperings right against his neck.

The officer opened the door and held Sora's head down as the boy clambered in, blocking his view of the smiling vampire. When he looked back to the dimly lit graveyard, Riku was gone.

* * *

Sora let his head fall forward onto the shiny, Pine-sol scented desk. A loud crack resounded through the classroom, causing heads to turn. Sora was almost certain that if it hadn't been for his superhuman strength and resilience, his skull would've fractured. Luckily, the bell had already rung and most of the students were on their way out of the room, so he didn't draw too much attention.

"I take it you're staying in here, Sora?" Cloud asked softly from behind his rickety teacher's desk when the room had emptied. He sifted his fingers through his blonde spikes, trying futilely to make them orderly and conforming.

"Yes, yes, Mr. Strife. I thank you kindly for letting me sleep in your classroom. Ah, sweet, blissful, sleep," the boy mumbled, folding his arms under his head and letting out a thankful sigh.

"No problem," Cloud said with a smile. He popped open the bag of barbecue chips he'd gotten from the vending machine in the teacher's lounge two periods earlier and nibbled on them as quietly as possible. No matter how hard the blonde man tried, every bite of the chips and every crinkle of the bag seemed to make as much noise as a freight train. He put the chips away in his desk and brushed his hands off against his khaki pants.

'_What to do, what to do,'_ Cloud thought impatiently, drumming his fingers against the lacquered surface of the flimsy wooden desk. He stared at the young man snoring lightly three desks away from him; Sora was one of the few students he genuinely enjoyed having in class, even if he mostly slept through the lessons.

Cloud sympathized with Sora; his own high school years had been lonely and hard, and he knew that his student had it even worse.

'_Admitting you're gay in high school… that takes stones,' _Cloud thought grimly. _'But look what it got him.'_

The high school body, on the whole, was not accepting of people who were different in any major way. Sora was the antithesis of everything that was normal and approved of at Destati High School. Cloud Strife watched the boy morosely and pensively from the sidelines, offering what help he could; that included giving the disaffected youth a welcoming place to stay and the opportunity to discuss any problems he had. He liked to think that he had forged some kind of bond with Sora, something akin to the corny, uplifting student-teacher relationships in the movies-- and definitely not a creepy, perverted, sexual relationship. No, that was most certainly not the case.

Cloud just liked to study people. The more he studied Sora, the more he noted the parallels that their lives ran, and the more similarities he found between them, the sadder he was.

Sora shifted in his desk, contorting himself in an effort to get comfortable. He let out an aggravated moan before sliding out of the desk and onto the floor, where he curled up into the fetal position and squeezed his eyes shut.

"Having sleeping problems?"

"No, this is how I always sleep," Sora grumbled sarcastically from the floor. "The people in the next class are talking really loud," Sora explained a few seconds later. "I wish they would be quiet."

Cloud listened intently for a moment, frowning when all he heard was silence. "If you say so. Damn, I don't know how you hear half the stuff you do. By the way, you need to keep that incident between the principal and his secretary that you overheard to yourself," he warned. "Oh yeah! Hey, do you know what I've got in my desk?" Cloud asked temptingly, a bright smirk tugging at one side of his mouth.

Sora sniffed. "Barbecue chips? I like barbecue chips."

"How do you always know?" Cloud frowned again, reaching into a drawer and pulling out the crinkled bag. He tossed it to the brunette, who snatched the bag midair, only a split second after it had left his teacher's hand. "Relax, Sora. No one's going to steal them from you."

The warning was in vain; Sora had already managed to cram every last chip into his mouth, making his cheeks puff out like a chipmunk. Tiny reddish crumbs flecked his cheeks. "You don't know that," Sora protested. His words were muffled by the densely packed food in his mouth.

Cloud shrugged. "Whatever. It's your windpipe. I don't care if it gets blocked by barbecue flavored potato products. That would make for an interesting obituary though…"

"You're so depressing."

"Yeah, well, you're not exactly a ray of sunshine yourself."

"I know," Sora pouted, crawling up to the desk and peering up at Cloud from its surface. "I wish I was, though. Then maybe I'd have more friends. Or friends period. I'm happy, really, on the inside. There's just so much crap I have to deal with right now, and it's hard to be bubbly when you're tired all the time."

"School getting tough? Are you overworked?" Cloud asked concernedly. "If you need help with another subject, I can--"

"No, no. Thanks, but no. It's more of a--a… an extracurricular activity," Sora said carefully, folding his hands and putting on his best 'This-is-totally-serious-and-I'm-not-being-deceitful-at-all' face. "It's like… soccer."

"Soccer? You play soccer? That's great! Team sports are great."

"Not so great, actually. See, there's this one guy-- a really strong, fast, uber-scary showoff named Riku-- and he's been giving me problems lately. Before, I could beat just about any guy on my rival team. Now he's joined up with them, and no matter how hard I try, I can't win. We're too evenly matched; if I score a goal, he gets one right after me. I can't win, but I definitely can't lose or give up."

"But aren't there ties in soccer?"

Sora waved his hand impatiently. "Ties are the same as losing. And I hate losing."

"Hm," the blonde supplied, obviously at a loss for advice. "Well, you know that cliché-- if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Right?"

"I don't think that's an option," Sora pouted. He was proud of the soccer team-vampire analogy he'd devised, and it had gotten him nowhere. What a waste.

The bell rang shrilly, jolting the two from their conversation. "Sorry I couldn't be of more help," Cloud offered. "I'm not very big on sports."

"S'okay, don't worry about it. I shall see you tomorrow!" Sora grinned as he collected his books and headed for the door. "Make sure you buy some extra chips-- I have a strange ESP-like feeling that tells me I will be extra hungry tomorrow, but I won't have any money for lunch."

"What an amazing sixth sense you have, Sora Kirsch. At least it _would_ be amazing if every single day wasn't already like that."

Sora stuck his tongue out at the teacher as he walked into the hallway. "Be careful, Mr. Strife. Don't stay out too late," the boy warned, real concern edging into his voice.

"You don't need to worry about me, Sora. It goes the other way around," he laughed.

Sora gritted his teeth and smiled. "Right. Got it."

* * *

"Now, remind me again-- what the fuck am I doing out here?"

Sora threw back his head and groaned. "You're helping me, Axel. I told you, Riku is up to something. I need to figure out what he's doing. And you're going to help me." He hacked at a small tree with his machete, clearing the path for the redhead behind him.

"What the hell am I? Your sidekick?" Axel said furiously, awkwardly pulling himself through the overgrown woods. His lengthy limbs had an annoying tendency to get caught in the underbrush.

"No. Unless you want to be. Then we'd have to give you a cool name, since we'd be like a team."

"I think Axel is already a cool name."

"It is," Sora agreed, "but you need to have an alias thing. Like how Batman has Robin, and Sherlock has Watson, and Mermaidman has Barnacleboy, and Rocky has Bullwinkle. You need a heroic name that's at least as cool as mine-- I mean, I'm _the Slayer_, after all."

"Yeah, yeah… you're our generation's Chosen One, who will stand alone against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness. Like I haven't heard that enough. So what am I? Your Slayette? Slayerboy? The mini-Slayer?"

"You're the Stake-Holder," Sora smiled, handing the redhead a bagful of the sharpened sticks. "Don't hurt yourself."

"Gee, I feel important," Axel muttered, digging through the bag. He yelped as one of the stakes poked his hand. "I can't see _anything_, Sora. If I fall, and these things stab and kill me, I will freaking haunt you."

Sora snickered and continued along the overgrown trail, cutting through vines and saplings that blocked the path. He was oddly comforted by the sound of Axel behind him, snapping twigs and cursing as he stumbled over rocks. The redheaded bar owner was one of a very small number of people that Sora actually felt comfortable talking to-- he was also the only one Sora would truly consider a friend. Axel was the only living human that knew his secret, and therefore the only one he could openly discuss his unusual problems with.

"I'm losing business for being out here, you know," Axel muttered from behind him. He cursed as a bent sapling was sprung back up at him, whipping him hard on the leg. "My clientele don't like it when I close down early."

"I'm sorry, Ax. If they give you any trouble, I'll straighten them out."

"Don't do that! Then they'll be scared to come back," he gasped. Axel's bar was unlike any other in the city. For one thing, it catered to the living and the dead alike. It also included a unique menu-- he served everything from ordinary beer and drinks to blood and various magical concoctions. "I can't have them thinking that I'm on the Slayer's side."

"But you are on my side," Sora pouted.

"They don't need to know that." Axel also served as Sora's informant, listening to drunken vampires and demons as they complained about romantic troubles, car troubles, and their plans for mass murder.

"Okay, we're here," Sora said, stopping abruptly. Axel stopped abruptly as well, but only after running into the smaller boy in front of him. "Dammit, Ax!"

"I can't see, Sora! We can't all be amazing, uber-fighters with night vision! I'm a plain old human, kiddo. No superpowers here."

"Don't call me that," Sora said, punching Axel lightly on the arm.

"Damn, Sora. You hit harder than you realize," Axel complained, rubbing his arm. "But let's get on with it. Where are we and why does it matter?"

"We're at the crypt of--" he paused to look at a crumpled piece of notebook paper "-- of the old church of Michael the Archangel. This is what you heard that rumor about, right?"

"Guess so. But that Chaos Demon was _pretty_ messed up when he started blabbing about it," Axel said, his mouth drawing into a grim line. "He said there was a vamp, not from around here, and that he recently started digging around in all the local crypts. You think it's this Riku guy?"

"I have a hunch," Sora whispered, running his fingers over the cracked, stone door of the crypt. The church above it had long ago been sundered by time and nature. Low, wrecked remains of walls and columns endured, covered by creeping ivy; tall grass and small saplings filled the area, overrunning the small clearing.

Axel stood behind him, taking in what details he could see with the poor light of the waning moon. "Wow. I bet it was nice back in the day, eh? It's weird how things like this happen-- something's great and magnificent one day, and then it's nothing but a shell later."

"I guess so. Well, it's time to go in. Look out," Sora warned him, pushing Axel back. "I'm gonna crack the door in half."

"You can't do that! Isn't it sacrilegious or something? A violation of the dead?" Axel asked hurriedly.

"Well… maybe." Sora looked thoughtful. He faced the crypt door and bowed. "Sorry, guys. No disrespect meant." Axel flinched as Sora hit the wall with enough force to bring it crumbling down. The cocoa haired boy dug through the rubble, making it low enough to step over. "Alright, Ax. You ready?"

"What? No. There's no way in hell I'm going down there. There are dead people!"

"Ax, you talk to dead people on a regular basis. Vampires are dead."

"It is not the same. Don't even try and tell me that's the same," Axel huffed, crossing his arms.

"Fine. You can stay up here, alone, in the dark, in the middle of the woods, completely vulnerable. Or you can come down with me, where I will be able to protect you." Sora hummed impatiently, arching an eyebrow as he waited for Axel's decision.

"Okay. I'll come with you. But I get to carry the battleaxe," he said stiffly, digging in Sora's backpack for the weapon. He pulled the double bladed axe carefully from the pack and scrubbed ineffectively at a dark bloodstain that shaded the edge of the pallid metal.

"Whatever makes you happy," Sora smiled, clambering over the remnants of the door with Axel following closely behind him.

"Going home would make me happy."

"Shhh." Sora quieted him as he withdrew a flashlight from his pocket. He flashed the light on the ground in front of him as he descended the stairs. The further down they went, the darker and dirtier it got. A cloud of fine, silvery dust was kicked up by their feet as they disturbed the previously untouched floor at the bottom of the stairs.

Axel coughed on the dust. "Let's get it over with. What are we looking for?" he asked, taking the flashlight out of Sora's hands and scanning the room. High arches supported the ceiling above them; statues of angels and saints lined the walls of the large room. The far wall was honeycombed, each of the holes filled with a coffin. A series of stone tombs were set in two even rows in front of them.

"Creepy," Axel shuddered.

"They're dead, Ax. Nothing to worry about," Sora said rationally, trying to reassure himself as well as Axel. "I doubt Riku's looking for a body, or a person. Maybe… a thing. They used to store stuff in crypts and mausoleums, right? Important stuff?"

"God, Sora. I dropped out three years ago. Do you really think I remember any of the shit I learned in high school?"

"A lot of help you are," Sora sighed. He snatched the flashlight and used it to check the walls. "There we go," he whispered upon seeing a set of small doors set in the wall across the room.

"You seriously think the thing Riku is looking for is in there?" Axel questioned, putting a hand on his hip and looking at Sora incredulously.

"Yes, do you?" Riku said from behind Axel.

"Holy shit!" Axel shouted as he turned to face the vampire, the battleaxe in his hand forgotten. "You scared the hell out of me, vamp."

"I would hope so," he said softly. Riku smiled at Sora. "I have to hand it to you, Slayer-- you made things a great deal easier for me," he laughed, walking past them and putting a hand on the handle of the door. It was locked, and remained shut at his light touch; he pressed harder, snapping the handle and yanking the doors open.

Sora waved at Axel, urging him to get outside. Axel shook his head, whispering furiously about leaving no man behind. Sora glared at him threateningly and pointed up the stairs. The redhead tossed the axe to Sora before heading up, pausing to give the brunette a thumbs up and a concerned smile.

"Your friend is leaving you? How supportive," the vampire said without even turning to face the Slayer. He rifled through the shelves, knocking over bottles, statues, and amulets. Riku found a long, gold chain set with rubies. He held it up and ran his hands over the jewels as he examined it, then tossed it to Sora. The brunette caught it instinctively. "You should keep it, Slayer."

"It isn't mine. It belongs to this church. To its people."

Riku turned to face him, meeting his eyes for the first time that night. "What church? It's nothing but broken glass and gravel now. What people? The church's people are here, they're all around you-- dead and gone. What good will gold do for them now? Take it, Slayer. I've seen your house. You could use the money."

Sora dropped the golden chain on the dirt covered floor. "First you try to get me to steal, and now you insult my house. A little discourteous of you, don't you think?"

"If you think that's discourteous, then just wait until I kill you." Riku smirked and then turned back to the set of open doors. He swept a hand along each shelf, pushing the contents out onto the floor-- rosaries, jewels, urns, and elaborately carved crosses were unceremoniously cast out. He chuckled to himself. "I had fun last night, Slayer. With you and the cop. You really are a horrible liar. Did you know that?"

Sora rolled his eyes. "Yes, I know. I can't help that I'm bad at lying through my teeth, unlike _certain_ people… Riku."

"I can't help that I'm good at covering my ass. It pays off, you know. But the look on your face was priceless! I loved every second of it," the vampire exclaimed, the hint of a pleased smile still on his lips. He frowned as he glanced at the now-empty cabinet.

"I guess it isn't here?" Sora asked, idly swinging the axe back and forth like a pendulum.

Riku's eyes followed it carefully. "What, no stake this time?"

"There's more than one way to kill a vampire."

"Indeed. But I was hoping you'd brought Mr. Pointy again," Riku smiled. He edged his way toward the wall opposite of the tombs. Sora followed him with the flashlight, unease creeping into his stomach. The light made eerie shadows over the statues behind Riku, making their eyes empty hollows. The vampire himself looked like a statue when he stopped moving. His hard, white flesh and smooth, marble skin made him ethereal and inhuman.

"So what are you looking for? Was it supposed to be here?" Sora asked again, aware that Riku was trying to dodge the question.

"And why would I ever tell you, Slayer?"

Sora frowned. "Good point. But then again, I am the one with the axe," the brunette reminded him innocently, looking up and whistling as he continued to swing it to and fro. "It should get me some answers."

"That old thing? You think I'm frightened by it? Please. I'm insulted that you would think so little of me." Riku waltzed confidently toward Sora, stopping a mere two feet from him; he had to give the boy credit for holding his ground. The vampire ran a finger along the sharpened edge of the axe. "That won't stop me," Riku whispered, leaning in to let Sora see him better. "You won't-- no, can't-- stop me. I could kill you so easily right now, and you know it."

"Then why don't you?"

Riku smiled enigmatically. "It's complicated." He glanced up at the ceiling. "Your friend's getting worried. You should go, Slayer."

Sora didn't move.

Riku smirked at his hesitation. "Chop chop, Slayer. If I get above ground first, your little sidekick won't have a chance."

"I'd pull your insides out if you ever touched him," Sora threatened, brandishing the battleaxe. He saw Riku flinch at the action, though the vampire tried to hide it.

"Fine. I wouldn't mess with the bar owner anyway. He's got the only dead and demonic friendly establishment in the city. His patrons would go insane if anyone hurt him. Anyway, neither of us wants to stay down in this filthy crypt, so let's go. You go upstairs first."

"Hell no. You go first."

"I'm not going first, Slayer. You'll stake me."

"Well, if I go first, you'll bite me!"

"Will not."

"Will too!"

"I will not!"

"Yes you will, you lying vamp."

"Uh, here's a bright idea," Axel interrupted from the top of the stairs. His voice echoed, letting his annoyed, disgruntled tone be heard repeatedly. "You both come up the stairs _at the same time_. Brilliant, no?"

"I think I might end up killing him anyway," Riku muttered jokingly, smiling as he looked at Sora. The brunette was tempted to smile.

"Not worth it," Sora sighed. "You learn to deal with him."

"I can hear you," Axel said in offended tones. "And if that's how you really feel, Sora, you can kiss your discount at my place goodbye."

They ignored him. "So… together?" Sora asked the vampire unsurely.

"Yes, together." Riku stood at the bottom of the stairs and waved for Sora to join him. They took each step in unison. Sora watched the silver-haired man from the corner of his eye, though his mind kept wandering back to the scar on his shoulder, to their previous meetings. He could hear his own anxious breathing, his own racing heartbeat, but Riku was dead silent.

"It's about time," Axel complained when the two finally emerged. "A bat nearly got caught in my hair while you two were having your little discussion down there." He ran a hand nervously through his red hair, as if still worried about furry, flying mammals getting trapped in it.

"Right, Axel. I should've been more concerned about you," Sora said sarcastically, throwing his arms in the air. "I mean, it's not like I was confined in a small, dark room with a deadly vampire or anything. I can't believe I'm so callous and uncaring."

"I'm no stranger to sarcasm, Sora. You just called me callous. And uncaring." Axel frowned as he twirled a stake absently in one hand. "So… where'd our little vampy friend run off to?"

"Huh?" Sora asked dumbly. He looked at the clearing around him-- empty. "What the hell? Where did he go? That damn vampire! Every time I think I've finally…"

"Finally? Finally what?" Axel asked.

Sora avoided the question and looked down at his silver watch. "It's almost six."

"Oh God, you're kidding me. Don't tell me I spent all night wandering in woods and crypts with you," the redhead moaned, covering his face.

"Yup, you sure did. And my guess is that Riku knew sunrise was coming and got his ass out of here as fast as possible."

"Smart man. Let's do the same," Axel grumbled, standing up from the rock he'd been sitting on and popping his back. He stretched each long arm out over his head, turning his wrists and twisting his fingers. "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon."

"Fine. You owe me breakfast though."

"Whatever gets me away from this hellhole," Axel sighed. "This is so… freakish. You know, three years ago I would've thought that vampires and monsters were just the delusional fantasies of paranoid people with overactive imaginations. Wait, are you sure I'm not crazy? Maybe I'm really locked away in an asylum somewhere, and this is all just an illusion, a figment of my imagination. Sora, are you real?" the redhead asked, poking Sora in the ribs.

"Stop it," Sora chided, slapping away the offending hand. "I am one hundred percent _not_ imaginary. Even someone as twisted as you couldn't make all this up, Ax. It's real, unfortunately."

"Damn. Oh, well. It's time to visit the Waffle House!" the redhead said with far more excitement than was healthy.

"The Waffle House? Ew. Like half of the stuff you consume there is lard or grease," Sora said disgustedly, scrunching up his nose and frowning.

"I happen to like greasy food," Axel admitted. He picked up Sora's machete and hacked at random pieces of tall grass. "And the thought of some fried eggs and hash-browns with some coffee is all that's keeping me from having a breakdown right now, so just let me fantasize, okay?"

"Alright, I'll try to be a little more sensitive about your dietary choices, Ax. But in return, you can no longer make fun of me for eating peanut butter and cheese sandwiches."

"It's unnatural! Peanut and dairy products should never mix, except in ice cream," Axel said matter-of-factly. "Now let's go. Those buttery, fried, lard eggs are calling me. 'Axel! Axel!' they say. 'Come eat us, for we are good for your soul, good for your spirit'."

"I notice you didn't mention your arteries," Sora grinned. He followed the redhead as he eagerly followed their trail from the night before back to civilization (which included the nearest Waffle House).

"Don't you bring me down, Sora."

By the time they were out of the woods, the sun was rising spectacularly. Sora watched it, having one of those rare moments where natural beauty seemed to overpower the problems of his life, of the world even, leaving him feeling small and in awe. He felt endless optimism as he saw the light breaking over hills and trees. It made him wonder, idly, how long it had been since Riku last saw the sun rise.

**

* * *

**

**Thank you for reading! I'm assuming that those made it this far actually read it. I know it's kind of starting out slow, but I plan on building it up, so… just hang on, I guess. It'll get better, I hope. Forgive me if the breaks in the story didn't make sense or flow or whatever.**

**A vampire fic! I couldn't resist. Plot bunnies have just been going at it in my head for forever now, breeding all kinds of little ideas. **

**Reviews make me happy! Tell me what you liked, what you didn't, your thoughts, inform me of typos (which there may be a good deal of), or anything, really. I'm not picky. **


	2. New Moon

**So many awesome reviews! **_**This**_** chappie is dedicated to iRoxas, sesshomaruhasafluffytail, and combo-bass, three of the incredibly faithful reviewers who slog through just about everything that I write. Thanks to the reviewers that pointed out typos and gave me advice. I tried to take it to heart; let's see if I improved, shall we? (Hah, not likely.)**

**Prepare for things to get a little weirder. And enjoy.**

"_What had that flower to do with being white,_

_the wayside blue and innocent heal-all?_

_What brought the kindred spider to that height,_

_then steered the white moth thither in the night?_

_What but design of darkness…"_

_---Robert Frost, Design_

* * *

"Just what do you think you're doing?" Leon asked quietly as he set his glass of red wine down on the table next to his armchair. Though he kept his face blank and his voice calm, he knew that his anger was apparent.

Riku, still taking his fuzzy black jacket off at the door, licked his lips as he gave a sidelong glance to the brunette. "What? I went out to get some dinner. That's not a crime, is it?"

"No, but your… _tendencies_ toward the Slayer are," Leon said shortly. He crossed his arms as he glared across the room at Riku-- his disheveled hair and half lidded eyes lessened the impact, but he still got his point across-- _'I know what you're up to, and stop it before I come kick your ass and MAKE you stop it'._

"I have no idea as to what you're talking about," Riku said simply. "And you shouldn't drink so much." He chucked his keys onto the kitchen counter and plopped himself onto one of the expensive leather sofas, propping his feet up on the lacquered coffee table. The flat he shared with Leon was by far Riku's favourite of all the homes he'd ever had-- it had hardwood floors, an outdoor terrace, a great view of downtown at night, and all the other luxuries that came standard with a costly penthouse.

"You've confronted the Slayer twice since we came back here, and you haven't even _tried_ to attack him," Leon reminded him, ignoring Riku's comment about his drinking. "In fact, you've been following him nonstop since we arrived. He's soft; killing him wouldn't be a problem for you." He eyed the younger vampire suspiciously, then sighed. "Knowing you, I can only think of one other reason you'd be so interested."

"What are you saying, Leon? If you want to call me a slut, then get out with it." Riku smirked. "But it's not like I heard you complaining when it was you that I was f--"

"That's not what I mean," Leon interrupted as he stood and walked into the kitchen area. He poured himself another glass of wine, filling it to the brim. "I know why you're so driven, but the Slayer isn't an option for you, Riku. He's the _enemy_. You can't have him. Stop chasing him."

"Everyone wants what they can't have," Riku whispered, examining his nails. He scraped dried blood out from underneath them and then wiped his hands against his pants.

"Well, you need to settle," the brunette warned. He paused to finish his glass, tipping his head back as he drained the last of the wine. "Accept it and find someone else. There are plenty of other humans out there for you, if that's what you're into right now."

"I guess," Riku mumbled, not agreeing with his sire at all. He didn't want just any human. He wanted the Slayer. No amount of common sense or practical wisdom would deter him now.

Leon sighed as he stood behind Riku's chair, casually reaching a hand over the back and catching Riku's hair. He twirled the silver strands gently between his fingers. "You know I want you to be happy."

"I know," Riku mumbled sadly. "I know how you feel." He did. His closeness with Leon, the sharing of their blood that had occurred when he'd been turned, gave him a deep connection to the brunette's feelings. Every emotion his sire had-- a pang of guilt, a twinge of hopelessness-- Riku felt weakly in his own heart.

"And if it weren't for the rules--"

"Fuck the rules," Riku growled angrily. He pulled his legs up into the chair with him, resting his head atop his knees. "I'm sick of those old bastards telling us what to do! And it's not even just about the Slayer, either; it's about all the pointless, stupid shit they try to enforce on us when they have no right whatso--"

"I know," Leon said quietly, stopping Riku's rant mid-sentence. The silver haired vampire bit his lip lightly to keep from picking up where he'd left off, his eyes narrowing slightly at the stern look from the brunette. "Let it go for now, Riku," he said tiredly. "Are you going to sleep anytime soon?"

"I doubt it," Riku pouted. "It's not like I'm sleepy yet. I've got energy to burn."

"Good. Your brother called. He's coming to town, and he's going to stay here for a few days. Or weeks. You never know with that one."

Aqua eyes widened in surprise and scanned the scarred man's face questioningly. "Which brother?"

"Roxas," Leon yawned, his opened mouth revealing two very large incisors. "You stay up to open the door for him, to welcome him in. If he gets back soon enough, the two of you can go out for something to eat." He gave Riku an affectionate pat on the head before walking slowly to the master bedroom at the end of the hallway, shutting and locking the door behind him.

"Why's he coming here? Where was he?" Riku asked the empty room, knowing full well that even if Leon could hear him, he wouldn't answer. He waited, staring out the wall-sized window at the changing colors of the sky. It was nearly sun-up before there was a knock at the door.

* * *

"Sora." It was not a question; it was not a greeting. It was a surprised observance. "It's… five-thirty in the morning. On a Saturday. At my house. And… there's Sora?" Cloud's coffee deprived brain tried to compute this. His eyes were screwed shut, obviously making it hard for him to positively identify the boy on his doorstep.

"Not a morning person?" Sora asked brightly. He carried a bag of muffins in one hand and a shopping bag filled with books in the other. "Hey, you know how I missed the last two days of school?"

"Uh… maybe. It... you were… it's… what now?"

"I missed the last three days of school. Cause I was sick. And I need to get caught up," Sora said pleasantly. Cloud's face-- unshaven, unwashed, and his eyes squeezed shut against the light-- didn't change. Sora's smile faltered. "I was… kinda hoping… that you would help. Cause you're a wonderful, fantastic, amazing, inspirational, amazi--"

"Okay, whatever, get in," Cloud grumbled, opening the door and standing to the side so the boy could enter.

Sora walked hesitantly into the small house. "It's… cozy," he said, nodding.

"Cozy is what a teacher's salary will get you," the blonde said dully. Sora noted Cloud's eyes with a smile-- they had remained closed for the entire conversation so far. He had to cough to hide his laughter every time his teacher stumbled into a chair or desk.

"Do you need something? I brought muf--"

"Coffee," the man moaned as he walked into the kitchen, leaving Sora standing alone in the living room.

The brunette listened intently to the slamming of cabinet doors as Cloud searched desperately for coffee-- something he was apparently out of. He giggled as the teacher cursed below his breath in the next room over, completely unaware that his student could hear every sound. Sora learned a few of Cloud's favourite four-letter words that day.

"No coffee," Cloud muttered to himself as he ambled out of the kitchen and back into the living room. "None. At all. I need… I need-- toss me muffin." He opened his hands in front of him, ready to catch. "I need muffin."

"Uh…" Sora thought this over, looking from the muffin in his hand to the blonde twenty-something across the room. "Are you sure? I could just hand it to you. If you drop this, then we'll only have three muffins, cause I don't blieve in the ten-second rule. And three isn't going to be enough to share. Unless we cut the third muffin in half, but--"

The blonde flapped his hands in frustration at Sora's rambling. "Just throw it, Sora!"

So Sora did. And much to the boy's surprise, Cloud caught that muffin with more speed and agility than he'd expected-- and all with his eyes shut. The teacher tore violently at the muffin, finishing it in less than a minute and then curling up on his couch.

"Okay, sit on down," Cloud murmured, patting the sofa seat next to him. "What do you need help with?"

"Organic chemistry, Much Ado About Nothing, the Spanish-American War, and graphing one-to-one functions. What _fun_." Sora smiled excitedly at Cloud, who heaved out a sigh. "I'm sorry," Sora apologized quietly, rubbing the back of his neck. "I know this is a pain, that_ I'm_ a pain for asking you to do this. Thank you for doing it anyway."

"No, Sora, I didn't mean to make you feel guilty. I'm flattered, honestly, and happy that you came to me for help," Cloud smiled softly. His ultramarine eyes were half shut, weighed down with sleepiness, but also bright and pleased. "I'm going to go brush real quick. Morning breath. I'll be back in a sec, alright?" the blonde said quickly as he stomped up the stairs to his bathroom, finally starting to wake up.

Sora nodded as he cracked one of the books open. He looked over the jumble of letters and numbers in his pre-calculus book before firmly shutting it and trying his history book instead. He flipped through the pages, stopping at pictures he found interesting-- a bullet scarred statue from World War II, charcoal covered mine workers, the first plane taking off, the first trains cutting across the plains. Sometimes, Sora almost envied the vampires he killed; they had the chance to witness history as it happened, to experience it firsthand. They knew things that history books never mentioned, that the rest of the world had forgotten.

"History first?" Cloud asked from behind Sora, leaning closer to see what page he was on.

Sora looked up, startled that the blonde had managed to get so close without him even realizing it. Riku was right-- he _was_ lax. "Uh, sure. That works." Sora rubbed his arms anxiously, still upset by his lack of observance.

"Let's try and hurry up, then," Cloud grinned. "I'm sure you've got better things to be doing on a Saturday than studying."

* * *

"Are you sure I'm going to be okay?"

"Yeah, you'll be fine."

"No, Sora. Do you_ promise_ I won't get hurt? Cross your heart and all that?"

Sora sighed. "Yes, Axel. You've got at least four layers of padding on. If you can feel me punching you through that, well… that's amazing. And excellent, cause it means I can kick serious ass. But it's highly unlikely, so don't worry." He got into fighting stance, putting up his thin but powerful arms and preparing to swing.

Axel flinched at the last moment, waving his stick-like arms in front of him to stop Sora. "Let's go back to the beginning of this-- so… I'm going to be okay after this?"

"Not unless you stop chickening out," Sora said exasperatedly, peeling his gloves off and throwing them on the floor. "Come on, Ax. Have a little faith in me, would you?"

The two stood opposite each other in the large storage room in the back of Axel's bar. A floor mat provided a layer of cushion between them and the hard cement. Faint sunlight filtered in through the high, small windows of the room. Cardboard boxes littered the floor, and a shelf lined with various wines, rums, and whiskeys was pressed safely against the far wall.

The redhead crouched down as low as the thick padding he was wearing would let him. His hands, covered by bright red boxing gloves, were held out tensely in front of him. His cherry red hair was smushed flat under the helmet strapped to his head, with errant red spikes poking out at odd angles from the bottom. He also wore a catcher's mask.

"Alright, alright," Axel said nervously, pumping his fists. "Bring it on, Sora."

"Okay," the brunette replied happily. "You just try to hit me, okay? Just keep punching." Sora slid his thinly padded black gloves back on, grinning widely as he prepared to fight the redhead hand-to-hand. "Oh, and remember, just in case things get too rough, the safety word is 'pineapple'."

"Wait-- what?" Axel asked urgently, his eyes wide. It was too late, though, and Sora was already charging at him with one small fist raised. Axel prepared himself for the blow, thanking God for foam padding as it landed on his shoulder with minimal pain. He swiped at the boy in front of him, hitting nothing but air. It seemed like Sora was always one move ahead of him, dodging every punch and constantly pelting the redhead no matter where he was.

Axel hissed as he realized that the padding wasn't working quite as well as he'd have hoped. Sora's hits grew steadily harder and more frequent. He lifted his arms to fend off the blows, grimacing at the sting of the brunette's attack. The Slayer wasn't stopping. Axel tried to hold him back, yelling for the boy to stop, but Sora was too in the moment to even hear him.

Knowing only one last move, Axel took a deep breath and waited for an opening. The redhead got his chance as Sora paused to catch his breath for a few seconds-- Axel fell to the floor, curled in the fetal position. "Pineapple! Pineapple! Dear God, pineapple!"

"Are you okay?" Sora asked concernedly, crouching down and trying to peel the wire mask from the redhead's face.

Axel hissed at him. "Get away! You promised this wouldn't hurt! Why can't you just train with a punching bag? That's all you're using me as," he shouted, pulling himself into a tighter ball. "You hit really, really, really hard, Sora. You're used to fighting demons and monsters and vampires, and they've got tougher skin. Maybe… maybe I can't help you like this."

Sora sighed, both sorry for hurting his friend and slightly angry that Axel wasn't strong enough to handle it. He frowned at himself for thinking that way, for trying to hold Axel to his own standards. "I'm sorry, Ax. You're right. I need to fight vampires and stuff. It's just hard to find one that I can say, 'Oh, let's take a break for a second. I'm a little tired. We'll pick up where we left off in a minute,' you know? I need to _train_. There are moves I need to learn, but you have to do them over and over to get them down. It's not a chance I can take with a real vamp, walking into a fight just to experiment with new tactics and skills. I guess… I need someone like me to practice with."

Sora leaned over the redheaded bartender, starting to pull the layers of body padding off of him. Axel struggled to undo the chinstrap holding his helmet on, cursing his gloves. He had to wait for Sora to unlace them before shaking the infernal red gloves off and undoing the helmet. He stood slowly, removing the last of the padding on his legs. Axel hissed lowly as he stretched out his limbs, rubbing them carefully to feel the damage. Sora saw the blooming bruises and looked away guiltily.

"I'm so sorry, Axel," he whispered. "I really didn't think… I didn't know that I was like that."

"Ah, forget about it," Axel said good-naturedly, giving the brunette a small smile. "Heh, now I know how all those vamps and baddies feel when you get your hands on 'em." He winced as his fingers ran over a particularly large, dark bruise in formation.

"Oh, God. Ax, I didn't mean to," Sora said softly, his eyes watering as he saw the damage he'd done. He blinked the tears back, trying to push down the overwhelming guilt and remorse.

"No, no, no, no," Axel cooed softly, pulling Sora into a tentative hug. He made sure to only express his pain when the brunette couldn't see his face. "You cry too easy, kiddo. Besides, remember what you said at the beginning?"

"I promised you that it wouldn't hurt," Sora said shamefully, burying his head in Axel's chest.

Axel cursed himself for allowing that to be brought up again. "No, not that. I could feel you hitting me through_ four_ layers of padding. That means you can 'kick serious ass', right?" Axel pulled himself away from the boy, holding him back so that he would see the redhead's face, his grin, his lack of any pain or discomfort.

"I-I guess," Sora muttered, wiping his eyes where tears had brimmed over. "Are y-you okay? You're not wincing anymore, you're smiling." The Slayer looked up at him hopefully, obviously wanting to hear that Axel wasn't hurt as badly as he'd let on earlier.

"Yeah, I'm okay," the redhead lied. "I feel way better now. It just took a minute to wear off, that's all." He kept an oversized smile locked on his lips to discourage any frowning, wincing, or grimacing. "Now come on, it's almost five. You get home and eat some dinner. Then do some school stuff. And then relax, cause I know that's what you do on Saturday nights. I need to start getting the bar ready to open up," Axel grinned, patting Sora on the shoulder.

"Thanks, Axel," Sora smiled over his shoulder as he walked out the door. "Sometimes... I need to be lied to."

Axel nodded to himself as he watched the brunette leave. He bit his lip as he contemplated the floor. The floor, he decided, looked rather nice and cool. He lay down on the grey cement, letting its chill soothe the aches and pains that wracked his body.

* * *

"So where have you been?" Riku asked Roxas urgently, ignoring the cup of warm coffee and blood in front of him. Questions had been eating at him all day, keeping him from sleeping until it was nearly noon. He'd been waiting for sunset for hours, just to draw the answers out from his brother.

"Oh, places," Roxas said idly. He knew how Riku hated answers like that, so he did it on purpose. "Aunt Lulu says hi. And so does cousin Paine."

Leon, who had previously been reading the newspaper in silence, looked up, surprised. "Where did you see them?"

"In Greece, I think. And then again in Haiti." Roxas dragged a tiny silver spoon in slow circles in his cup of red-tinged tea. His feathery blonde hair, usually immaculately clean, was still unwashed, soil and twigs scattered throughout the yellow locks. Dirt smudged his face.

"So that's where you went? Greece? You left us for _Greece_?" Riku asked acidly, his voice getting softer with every word.

"Riku," Leon warned quietly, shooting him a look that clearly said, 'he's finally back, stop making waves, don't blow it, and go get me more coffee'. The silver haired one rose from the table, his chair scraping loudly against the floor, with Leon's cup in hand-- the cup read 'World's Greatest Dad'. It had been a present from Riku some years ago. It was Leon's favourite cup, and therefore well used; the cheap lettering had even started to flake and peel off.

Roxas spoke up just as Riku was pouring the steaming drink into the oversized coffee cup. "I didn't just go to Greece," he said just loud enough for Riku to hear in the kitchen. "I went to Egypt, India, Haiti, Japan, Germany, Italy, Argentina, Luxembourg, and Russia. And even back to France," he added, looking meaningfully to Leon. "Just for the memories," he smiled.

Leon looked away, mildly uncomfortable with the memories that Roxas was bringing up.

Riku glared at Roxas as he set the oversized coffee mug on the table in front of his sire. "Right. So why'd you come back? Traveling the world suddenly got boring?"

Roxas' icy blue eyes scanned Riku's face unblinkingly. "Maybe."

"Maybe?" Riku asked sarcastically. "'Maybe' is not an answer. If you don't tell me why you're here, I swear to God that I'll kick your ass out of here, no matter what Leon says," he growled, baring his fangs in a primitive display of anger.

Roxas watched him, tensing as he felt a fraction of what Riku was feeling. Leon shifted in his chair uncomfortably, but didn't stop the two. Finally, Roxas looked at the floor and spoke. "I got lonely. I missed… being a family. No matter where I went, I saw it; humans that were together, other vampires that were together. It was seeing Aunt Lulu, mostly, that convinced me I should come back."

"She'll do that to you," Leon sighed, reopening the paper to the entertainment section.

Riku walked to the other side of the table, stopping in front of Roxas. The blonde looked up at him nervously, refusing to meet his eyes for longer than a second. "I'm glad you decided to come back," Riku finally sighed, pulling Roxas up out of his chair and into a hug. "I guess."

The startled blonde soon relaxed against his younger brother, embracing him as well, smiling at the rare admission. He ran his small hands over the pale, argent hair soothingly. Roxas pecked him on the cheek. "Me too," he said as he pulled away, already reverting back to his usual cold self.

Leon, who had already greeted Roxas warmly that evening when he'd woken up, stood and pulled him into another affectionate hug. He kissed the top of Roxas' head, nuzzling the dirty blonde hair. He brushed a hand through it afterwards, trying to rake out some of the twigs and leaves.

"What happened to you?" Riku laughed, joining in the task of picking debris from his older brother's hair. "Don't tell me; you decided to get back in touch with nature. Or maybe you just decided to swear off hygiene?"

"I was in the woods," Roxas explained, obviously annoyed and embarrassed. "It was almost sun-up, and there wasn't a place to sleep, so I had to dig a hole and bury myself. It was the only way to avoid being fried to a steamy crisp."

"Roxas? Lie down in _dirt_? I wouldn't have believed it unless I'd seen you with my own eyes," Leon chuckled lowly as he dug a leaf out of the blonde's fluffy mane.

"Hmmm," Riku sighed happily. Though he and Roxas never did see eye to eye, and even though they'd had more fights and arguments than he could count, he loved having him back. There was a… _completeness_ with having him there; he felt, too, that Leon was pleased with the blonde's return. "Well, now we're only one person short of having a real family again," he said quietly.

Leon's light smile was extinguished. "Riku. You know he's not going to come back."

"Yeah, well, we thought the same thing about Rox, didn't we? And look, he's right back where he belongs." Riku put an arm possessively around the smaller vampire-- who tried to shrug away to no avail-- and smirked. "Come on," he said, looking pointedly at Roxas, "we've got a lot to catch up on. And you need to go take a shower."

"Is it true that this is the town where the Slayer lives?" the blonde asked curiously.

Leon huffed. "Don't even get him started on the Slayer," he warned Roxas. "You'll encourage him."

Riku smiled conspiratorially at his brother, arching one brow deviously. The refined blonde looked bemusedly at Riku, a small smile exposing his delicate white fangs. "You get stranger and stranger with every passing decade, Riku."

* * *

Sora walked quietly through the alley that lead directly to his house. He was normally more inclined to avoid any route that involved an alley, but this was his night off. The brunette had eagerly made his weekend trip to the store to splurge and buy treats-- candy and chocolate, as well as cookies and a few small containers of ice cream. He held the paper bag filled with desserts close to his chest, more worried for its safety than for his own.

The alley was the most direct path to his tiny, slightly rundown house, and he wanted to get back as fast as possible. It wasn't often Sora got the chance to spend the night in and relax, catching up on his sleep after engorging himself on delicious treats and snacks.

"Aw," the brown haired boy muttered as he stepped in a puddle. He felt the cold, dirty water soak his shoe, seeping in and drenching his sock and his foot as well. "That sucks."

"Need any help?"

"Oh, sweet Jesus!" Sora gasped, flailing backwards. He pointed a finger at the now-familiar vampire. "Why do you keep popping up out of nowhere? What are you doing here? Why are you so sneaky?" Sora asked, stalling. He mentally reviewed his earlier actions, realizing with cold dread that he had left everything-- his stake, his knife, even his holy water-- at home, on the desk next to his bed. He was weaponless. Damn.

"Uh… cause I'm a vampire?" Riku sort-of-answered with a smile. "It's pretty much what we do-- creep around in the dark, follow the Slayer to the store, pounce on him in dark, deserted alleys."

"Pounce?" Sora asked nervously, edging along the wall away from Riku. He clutched his bag closer to himself, preparing to make a run for it.

"Well, maybe not pounce, exactly. I mean, some would," Riku said carefully as he moved quickly toward Sora. He stood several feet in front of the Slayer, blocking his escape. "But… I'm not much of a pouncing kind of guy."

"Really? Cause I recall you literally pouncing on me that one time," he said angrily, trying to cover up the desperation in his voice. "Still have the scar." He compared his options: he could drop the bag and run, drop the bag and fight, then run, or hold on to the bag and pray for a meteor to fall from the sky and knock Riku unconscious, allowing him to get away.

He opted for the latter. Sora scanned the sky hopefully, looking for any shooting stars that might be headed this way. Riku arched an eyebrow at the preoccupied Slayer, who was gawking at the night sky as if he'd just seen a UFO. The vampire hesitantly turned to look in the same direction as the boy, his eyes carefully searching the stars for any alien spacecraft.

Riku's momentary distraction was all the opportunity that Sora needed; he flew down the alley and toward his house, bag still in hand, hopping fences and jumping over the ditches and trashcans that seemed to be everywhere in his rundown neighborhood. He could hear Riku's light footsteps right behind him-- they were the only indication that the hunter gave of even existing. No panting breath, no exasperated words-- just those even, rapid footfalls.

Sora gasped as he finally reached the fence that marked his yard, hopping it easily. He felt Riku's fingers grasp at his clothing, but he bolted before the vampire could get a firm hold. Sora was nearly there, almost there, another twenty feet and he would be to the porch, and then to the door, and then inside to safety. Houses were safe.

The brunette felt adrenaline surge through him, making his legs move faster, dulling the ache of exertion in his muscles. He took the steps leading up to the back porch of his house in one easy bound. He reached a hand out to the door, the door he purposely left unlocked in case of an incident like this-- human intruders were far easier to deal with than racing vampires. The tips of his fingers touched the cold metal--

And before he realized it, Sora had been slammed against the side of his house. The bag dropped to the rough, splintery wood of the porch, its contents spilling out over the floor. Sora's back rubbed uncomfortably against the flaky siding of the wall as he squirmed, still panting for breath.

"Why are you running from me?" Riku asked him angrily, his cold, strong hands wrapped in Sora's shirt, pressing him against the wall. Sora felt his heart go wild at he look in Riku's eyes, which shone with a hard glint, reminiscent of a predator.

"Oh, gee," Sora gasped between breaths. "I have no… idea why. I mean… you're only trying… to kill me, right?"

"No, no I'm not. I asked you if you needed help. That whole time we were in the alley, I didn't do anyth--"

"You tried to kill me before!" Sora screamed, kicking at the silvery vampire. "And you nearly succeeded! You're playing mind games with me, nearly killing me one time and then not even touching me the next. You don't try to kill me, but you threaten me. You say, 'I won't but I can'. It's… it's worse than outright fighting. You're confusing me, I don't-- it doesn't make sense. _You_ don't make sense. What do you want from me?"

Riku said nothing, slowly pulling himself away from Sora. He unwrapped his hands from the fabric of Sora's shirt, letting the Slayer go. But he put himself between the door and the boy, letting Sora know that he wasn't going anywhere soon. "Sorry," he murmured, looking unsure.

"D you want to kill me?" Sora asked, trying to prompt the vampire into talking.

Riku frowned. "I don't know. A little, I guess."

"A little?" Sora asked him incredulously, his hands on his hips. "You want to kill me 'a little'? How do you only kill someone a little?"

Aquamarine eyes met sapphire. "Let me put it this way-- my urge to kill you isn't as strong as it used to be. I still want to-- that demonic, animalistic part inside of me will always want to kill-- but the rest of me, the _real_ me, isn't like that right now. Anymore. It's hard to explain, but... I- I realize what I want now, and I'm not going to do what others want just so I can live up to their expectations. I don't really want to spend all my time trying to kill you. I'm open-minded. I don't mind peacefully coexisting with you."

"But… you're a vampire," Sora said uncertainly. He resisted the urge to let his jaw drop, though it was hard. He wondered if the vampire was on drugs, or had experienced a head injury recently.

"I realized."

"Vampires have been trying to kill the Slayer for centuries. For millennia. For forever," Sore reminded him, unsure if Riku was telling the truth or just being insane. He was pretty sure that vampires got killed for saying stuff like this. "And you, in particular, have been trying to kill me, in particular, for some time. Besides, I kill your kind. Isn't that reason enough to hate me?"

"You'd be surprised at how many vampires die at the hands of other vampires, Slayer. We're not exactly group oriented." Riku bit his lip lightly, the ivory fangs resting against his pale lips. "Very territorial, very… rule oriented. The older vampires like having a lot of power and wielding it over the rest of us. And compared to what they do to the fledglings they kill, you're a saint. So no, that doesn't really bother me."

"Oh. Well… that's kind of a downer," Sora muttered, feeling a little sad for vampires in general now. He looked up at Riku, chewing nervously on his thumb nail. To be honest, Sora didn't feel as uncomfortable with Riku as he had the previous times. In fact, Riku had gotten less and less threatening with each meeting they had, which was a remarkable feat in itself. "I don't want to jinx anything, but you definitely don't _seem_ like you're trying to kill me anymore."

"That's cause I'm not," Riku said simply. To demonstrate this, the vampire crouched low to the porch floor, picking up Sora's desserts and putting them back in the bag. He stood and held it out to Sora, who took it tentatively.

"Thanks," the brunette mumbled, squeezing the bag and looking around unsurely. "Any particular reason _why_?"

"I don't think I could explain."

"Oh." Sora moved slowly toward the door, relieved when Riku gave him no opposition. He opened the door, but stopped before going in. "You know… you're not as horrible as I first thought. I mean, you _were_ horrible, cause you tried to rip my throat open--"

"Yeah, sorry about that. Both times." Riku smiled crookedly and lifted his shoulders, tilting his head to the side and looking rather embarrassed.

"--but I'm open-minded, too. People can change, and forgiveness is good. Maybe… you have reformed. Or maybe you're in the process. Whatever the reason, I'm glad for it. You're a formidable enemy, and having you approaching neutral is good news to me." He smiled shyly at the silver headed vampire, giving him a thumbs up as he opened the door with his foot. "I'll make a pact with you-- you don't try to kill me, and I won't try to kill you. Unless you go crazy and slaughter a whole bunch of people, cause then I'll have to stake your ass," he added seriously.

"My ass?" Riku asked amusedly. "_Stake_ my_ ass_?"

"Uh, figuratively. Not literally. And not in the sexual figurative sense, but in the, uh, not-sexual figurative sense. There will be no staking of the ass, sexual or literal," Sora explained, reddening with each word. "Not that _I_ would be-- I mean, that is to say-- I'd never be… I'm going to go inside now. And stop talking. Goodnight." Sora waved goodbye as he sidled into the house, the screendoor slamming shut behind him.

Riku returned the wave and grinned at the boy, watching until he was out of sight. He waited, concealed in the darkness, until he could sense that Sora had settled in for the night. Finding an excellent perch in the tree next to Sora's house, Riku looked into the Slayer's second story room through the large, open window. The vampire watched him as he drifted into sleep, the empty bags of candy and cookies littering the floor around his bed. He watched the boy's chest rise and fall with each breath, saw him turn fitfully in his sleep, heard him speaking softly in his dreams. He stayed outside that window as long as he could, tearing himself away from the window only when the first rays of sun started lighting the sky.

* * *

**So... this may weird people out, but Leon, Riku, and Roxas are a family. A "vampire" family. Meaning that they're related by who bit them, not by actually being born from the same parents. Just thought I'd point that out in case anyone is confused. (I don't blame you if you are.) I plan on going into it in more detail later.**

**Thank you for all the great reviews! They really made me get excited to do the second chapter. Which is the only reason it got done so quickly (at the expense of other stories) XD**

**Come on, people! Every time you review, a sexy vampire gets his fangs! Or something corny like that.**


	3. Chasma

**This chapter goes to Wepi and QuestofDreams! I'm starting a new tradition for this right here, right now-- Chapter dedications! (Thinly veiled incentive to keep people reviewing...) **

**I love y'all for reading and reviewing, and I can only hope that this chapter is interesting and not-confusing enough to reward you for it. **

"_The memory emerges from the night around me._

_The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea."_

_---Pablo Neruda, A Song of Despair_

* * *

Sora paced between the rows of tall elm trees in one of the town's larger parks. The vampires were out in full force tonight; he'd killed over a dozen in the last hour. Demons were also appearing in greater numbers than usual, giving the Slayer something to worry about.

"Oh, God, that is just _disgusting_," he gagged, wiping the bluish blood of a recently slain fyarl demon on his pants. The putrid smell emanating from the decapitated body of the gray-skinned, spiky monster was enough to make the brunette regret that third hamburger he'd eaten.

"Great. This is just fantastic," Sora said to the body as he slung his axe over his shoulder. "Now what am I going to do with your corpse, huh? At least vampires have the decency to turn into dust when they die. You, on the other hand, have a big, dead, visible body. How do I get rid of you?"

The fyral demon didn't answer, being dead and all. Sora sighed, realizing that the solution to his problem would be unpleasant. And messy.

He took his axe in one hand, surveying the task before him; he had to chop up the demon and bury it before any other humans saw. If someone found this thing in the park, it would _probably_ start a riot. Or at least a slew of alien and conspiracy theories.

Sora held his breath as he hacked away at the dead demon, groaning in disgust as he felt the noxious blood splatter against him. When it was in sufficiently small pieces, he began digging. He piled the body parts into a relatively small hole at the base of a shrub and covered them with dirt, taking care to hide the spot with dead leaves and branches.

The Slayer squatted, resting on his heels, as he brushed the dirt off of his hands and smiled at his work. Even though he was sweaty, and dirty, and his favourite pants had been ruined, he was satisfied at his success after a long night's work.

'_Now, that's what I call a job well done!' _he thought proudly. _'I think that's enough for one night. Time to go home and hi--'_

Sora was flung sideways and onto the ground. He cursed himself for being so distracted with his own thoughts, which had left him open to an ambush. A bulky, dirt covered vampire was practically on top of him, using one of his grimy hands to push at Sora's chin and expose his neck. The brunette used his free hand to punch at the vampire's jaw; he felt a surge of animalistic satisfaction as he heard the bone crack under the blow.

The vampire was openly shocked at Sora's strength. He looked down at the boy with confusion and anger written all over his face.

'_He doesn't know who I am,'_ Sora realized._ 'He's a fledgling that just crawled out of his grave, and he was expecting an easy kill. He doesn't even know what a Slayer is... I guess I'll have to show him.'_

The Slayer punched upward again, this time using his forearm to hit the vamp. The dead man flew up and off of Sora, landing roughly on the ground a few feet away. The brunette pulled a stake out of his pocket and stood, watching with narrowed eyes as the vampire rose as well. The vampire growled as he lunged at the boy, knocking the wooden weapon from his hands. He swiped at the Slayer's face, his fingernails like claws, his fangs shining threateningly.

Sora swung a fist angrily at the vamp, pouring all of his desperation, adrenaline, and bloodlust into it-- his punch met nothing but air.

Sora stumbled forward in shock, the momentum of his attack throwing him off-balance. His opponent was nothing but dust-- sparse, silvery particles that were now drifting lazily to the ground. And standing only feet from the Slayer was Riku, who was curiously examining the stake in his thin, pale hands.

"Hmph. So that's what it feels like… staking someone, I mean," the silver headed vampire said flatly, not at all remorseful for just killing one of his own kind. "I think you dropped this," he said, looking up at Sora. Riku tossed the sharpened stick to the brunette, making sure to throw it gently so as not to harm the boy when he caught it.

Sora slid the stake back into his pocket, not taking his eyes off of the vampire. "Um… thanks, I guess," he muttered, blushing and looking away.

Riku was behind him in an instant, his lips next to Sora's ear. The brunette tensed. "You're welcome, Slayer. And relax, I'm not going to hurt you," Riku laughed lowly, the velvety sound making Sora shiver. "If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead by now. But I don't so you're not." He wrinkled his nose at the stench of demon blood on Sora but said nothing.

Sora eeped as he felt the vampire's hard body press against his back and his cool, moist breath on his neck. He could feel a blush creeping onto his face. "Gee, Riku. You really do know how to make a situation awkward and uncomfortable, what with your complete disregard for personal space and your vague death threats. And your stalker breathing! Seriously, scoot back a little," the boy said in perturbed tones as he elbowed Riku away. "And I thought vampires didn't breathe."

"We don't _need_ to, but it's still fun to do sometimes," the vampire smiled. "Like when you're walking behind someone in the woods, and it's so dark that they can't see you, so you get _real_ close and start breathing heavily, and then stop whenever they panic and look around. And then, just when they realize something is actually there, you lunge in and sl--"

"OhmyGodstopitnow!" Sora yelled, covering his ears and huddling over. "I do _not _want to hear about the sick games you play with people before you kill them. No. I'd rather you leave. This is not good conversation material for humans, Riku."

"Oh. Really? Then what do you talk about?" he asked, looking confused. He'd never been one to hold particularly long or pleasant conversations with humans, and that made speaking with the Slayer a bit difficult.

"Uh… the weather, movies, what's on TV, that kind of stuff." Sora started walking through the empty park, heading for the large fountain at its center. He beckoned for Riku to follow.

"Oh. It's um… a nice night tonight. Not too cloudy. Nice and brisk," Riku said, nodding as he walked next to Sora. The Slayer had to give him credit for trying, right?

"Yeah. Very brisk. So, um… do you watch any TV? See any movies?" Sora asked amiably, trying to break the ice. He licked his lips, which were chapped by the cold of the night.

"No."

"Read any good books lately?"

"Not particularly."

"Um… eat at any good restarau-- oh, wait. Forget that."

"Well, I did find a lovely little neighborhood nearby, full of great places to eat. Lots of Greeks, lots of Italians. God, I love Italians, but they can be so spicy." He but a hand over his chest. "Heartburn, you know."

"I didn't want to know," Sora grimaced, fighting disgust. "Do you ever talk about anything except killing people?" He stopped next to the fountain, looking at his wavy reflection in the bubbling water, and Riku's visibly fainter one.

"That's what I _do_, Slayer. I have to. To survive, remember?"

Sora frowned, having difficulty with putting his distaste into words. "But couldn't you live off of rats and stuff? Like--"

"That's disgusting! Would you like to go around eating rats and other little vermin, Slayer? No, I didn't think so."

"It was just a suggestion," Sora pouted. He bit his lip, trying again. "But don't you get tired of it? Of hurting people like that?" He sat down on the concrete edge of the fountain, his hands balled into fists inside his hoodie's pockets. Riku sat as well, looking completely unaffected by the cold.

"Not really, no. We kill to live, and it doesn't make sense to regret doing what survival requires. I mean… humans are just like little Happy Meals to me. Happy Meals with legs. They make me hungry." Riku looked surprised when Sora gulped and shifted uncomfortably. "But not you! Don't worry, I won't eat you, Slayer."

"But you want to. You want me, don't you? I'm like… the ultimate Happy Meal for vampires, aren't I? I heard Slayer's blood is supposed to be extra sweet and tasty to vamps or something."

Riku looked away, the corners of his mouth delicately turned down. "Yeah, it is. When you drink a Slayer's blood, it's the best feeling in the world. It makes you strong, it makes your heart sing, it gives you power, it makes you… very horny, actually. Your blood is a great aphrodisiac, actually." Riku smiled widely at the Slayer.

"Sounds like you've had a taste before," Sora said flatly, resting his hands on his knees and leaning forward. "Killed a Slayer back in the day?"

"Mmmhmmm," Riku admitted, nodding. He smiled fondly at the memory, his unearthly eyes closed in bliss. "First in Latvia, then in Russia. Once again in Germany, after the war. It was great."

The current Slayer's breath escaped him for a moment. "Looking to kill another?" Sora asked suspiciously, his hand resting over his pocket of stakes.

"No," Riku said slowly, as if he was speaking to a child. He put his face in front of the Slayer's, their noses nearly brushing. He could hear Sora's heartbeat quicken. "I'm not. Really."

"But why not? It doesn't make se--"

"Does it matter? I'm not going to kill you, so be grateful. That's all there is to it," Riku said defensively, leaning back and crossing his arms.

They sat in silence for the next few minutes. Sora gently traced the outline of his reflection in the water with his fingertip, the cold quickly making his wet fingers numb. Riku watched him detachedly, his cold eyes traveling over the Slayer's body, memorizing every curve and plane. The vampire's heart jumped every time the boy turned his head, exposing the delicate neck he usually kept so well protected.

"Touchy," Sora mumbled with a pout. He perked up upon hearing voices; a group of boys, it sounded like, entering the park. Sora frowned with recognition, his sapphire eyes narrowning. "Great," he said, looking to Riku. "It's a bunch of assholes from my school. We need to leave." He stood up quickly and offered a hand to Riku.

The vampire took it with a smile, his larger hand wrapping around Sora's. The brunette gasped at the iciness of Riku's flesh, at its smoothness. "Why do we have to go? I'd say this park is big enough for all of us," the vampire smiled, a wicked glint in his eyes as he inclined his head in the direction of the voices.

Sora sighed and pulled him along toward the back exit of the park. He waited until they were clear outside of the park before talking. "Those guys love finding me by myself; that way, they know they'll get away with beating me up." Sora sighed. "Not that they ever get caught when they do it in school…"

"They beat _you_ up? But you're the Slayer!" Riku exclaimed, looking incredulous.

"Exactly. That means I can't even fight back. If I did, they would know just how different I am," the teen growled, his own frustration at the situation evident. "They would be even worse. They would _know_ I'm a freak."

"Nonsense. Make an example of one of them! Kill one, nail him to a wall, and pull his intestines out. No one will cross you again." Riku smiled brightly, happy to have found a solution. "Oh, on second thought, nail him up and pull out his intestines first, and_ then_ kill him."

"How long have you been a vampire, exactly?" Sora asked dryly. He kicked an empty can down the sidewalk. "Cause I don't think you remember what human society is like. You can't just go around killing people! There are rules and laws and… stuff. Plus, it's wrong, even if they do deserve it."

Riku frowned again, wondering how long he'd been out of the loop. After all, evisceration was a perfectly acceptable method of intimidation for vampires, and he'd assumed the same was true for humans. "Wow. I guess I really have been dead for a lot longer than I thought," he said in surprise, scratching at his head.

"How old are you?"

"Two hundred twenty-one. My next birthday is in a few months."

"Jesus! You're ancient."

"I'm not that old," Riku mumbled, looking offended. "I mean, that's still fairly young for a vampire, and I was only twenty when I died, so it's not like I _look_ that old or anything. I'm attractive. You know I'm attractive, right?"

"Wow. Can you imagine how nasty and wrinkled you'd be right now if--"

"No." Riku's glare stopped Sora mid-sentence. "And you're not allowed to imagine it either."

"Psh, whatever," Sora laughed, his eyes on the ground. "I guess you're walking me home, huh? My house should be right up around the corn--" he looked up sharply at the vampire. "Hey, I saw that!"

"Saw what?"

"You! You were looking at my neck!"

"Was not," Riku lied.

"You so were," Sora countered obnoxiously. "Just remember to keep your mouth to yourself, okay?"

"Oh, I'll try," the vampire whispered under his breath, grinning at the Slayer and displaying his ivory fangs.

* * *

Roxas shut the book he'd been reading and tossed it onto the table. "I'm bored. Tell me this again-- why won't Riku let me go hunt the Slayer?"

Leon sighed as he dried out a small glass and set it on a shelf. "He has some kind of… odd little crush on him."

"A vampire in love with a Slayer," Roxas mused to himself. "It's almost poetic, in a twisted, disgusting sort of way."

"Don't be too hard on Riku," the older vampire warned Roxas. He gave the blonde a brief, warm look. "He's happy that you're back with us. And I am, too."

Roxas tilted his head back and reluctantly let himself grin. "Me too. I just wish there was _something_ to do around here." The blonde ran his hands over his face, groaning. "You know… I think I want a drink. Any good bars around here? Any undead-friendly ones?"

Leon, who was sipping on a glass of brandy, paused to turn and look pointedly at his rather impressive liquor cabinet, an expanse of wall that was filled with nearly every kind of alcohol imaginable. "A drink, you say?"

Roxas smiled coyly. "I'm a social drinker, Leon. Unlike you, you recluse, I actually _enjoy_ going out in public sometimes. And who knows? Maybe I'll find someone fun to bring home," the blonde said expressionlessly, testing Leon for his reaction.

The brunette frowned as he took another long sip. "It's not my fault that I prefer to drink on my own. And yes, there is a bar around here. I believe it's called… Oblivion."

"Cute," Roxas muttered, slipping on his coat. "If I'm not back by morning, don't worry. Don't let Riku get all concerned and righteous and come looking for me like he always does."

"Yes sir," Leon said amusedly, his tone mocking. "I solemnly promise not to give a damn when my eldest fledgling doesn't come home, leaving me wondering if he's been burned to death, slain, or run away again. Yeah, right." Leon smiled sarcastically at the frowning Roxas. "Your curfew is five AM. Don't be late, or I'll come looking for you myself."

Roxas turned to the door, muttering about overprotective parents and curfews. "I'm not a child anymore," he growled as he opened the door.

"The teddy bear you sleep with every day says otherwise," Leon chuckled.

"Leave Mr. Stuffy alone!" Roxas huffed. He slammed the door and leaned back against the dark wood. The blonde cursed Leon for a full two minutes, waiting for the blush on his face to die down. Who and what he slept with at night was _none_ of Leon's business.

He pressed the elevator button and waited impatiently.

* * *

"So then she leaves me for this-this…_ slut_ of a turok-han," a blonde, goateed vampire said angrily. He drained another glass of blood and rum dizzily, his eyes unfocused and bloodshot.

"Man, that sounds awful," Axel said sympathetically to the wasted vampire, reaching over the bar counter and patting him on the shoulder. "She doesn't know what she's in for-- those turok-han guys are no fun. They're always like 'Arg, kill this' and 'Arg, kill that'. Very predictable, no romance at all," the redhead said, shaking his head.

"Yeah? Yeah? Well, I wouldn't go out with her again, even if she came crawling back," the vampire slurred. He covered his face with gloved hands and leaned against the countertop. "You know what? Fuck her. Fuck her! I'm better off."

"Right on, Luxord. You're an independent man-- er, vamp now!" Axel said supportively as he slid another drink in front of the man and added it to his tab. "Besides, that hot lady banshee over there has been eyeing you all night. Hint hint."

"Thanks, Ax. You know, as far as humans go, you're not too bad." Luxord replied, looking over his shoulder at the winking, smiling woman. He nodded to Axel and rose, making his way over to the banshee's table with a swaying stagger.

"Thanks. I try." Axel cleared the used glasses off of his bar counter and put them in a sink to be washed, watching as his customers mingled and chatted. Tonight was good, lots of business. The bar area was for the most part empty, as most of the patrons were crowded around the pool tables or off playing cards.

The redhead looked up as a small blonde vampire slid onto a stool in front of him, immediately attracting his attention.

"Hey, what can I get for you?" he asked with a surprised smile. Axel glanced the vampire over-- thick, spiky blonde hair and cold blue eyes, pale skin and elegant features. A cross pendant was tucked under his chin, held against his neck by a fine silvery chain.

"What do you have?" the blonde asked with a smirk, resting his elbows on the countertop and leaning forward. He licked his lips hungrily.

"You name it. Blood?" he offered, holding up a glass. "I've got A, AB, and even a little O on tap, if you like. I'm all out of type B, but--"

"I prefer my blood a little… fresher," the vampire interrupted with a luring smile, reaching across and running a finger down the side of Axel's long neck. "If you know what I mean," he whispered, looking up at the redhead avidly.

"And I'm all about pleasing the customer," Axel smiled, gently wrapping his hand around the blonde's frosty wrist and pulling it away from his neck. "Really, I am. But I stop short of letting the clientele eat me."

The blonde frowned and pulled his hand back reluctantly, knowing it would be unwise to harm the bar owner. "I'll have a glass of A. And a White Russian. With ice."

"Sure thing," Axel replied, pulling out bottles of vodka and Kahlua. "I'm Axel, by the way. I own this place. This must be your first time here, 'cause I know I'd never forget a face like that." The bartender smiled boldly.

The blonde couldn't believe the brazenness of the man, flirting like that with a _vampire_. "It is. And I can't believe that a _human_ owns a place like this," he said snidely, taking the tall glass filled with blood as the redhead handed it to him. "I'm surprised you haven't been killed yet."

"Nah, most of the local undead population enjoys frequenting this place, and if I died they'd have to close it down, so I'm not too worried about it." He finished the blonde's drink by pouring in a small amount of cream and then set it down in front of him. "So… what's your name?"

"Roxas," the vampire said indifferently. He picked up his drink and drained it slowly, keeping his eyes locked on the bartender's deep jades.

"Well, Roxas, it's nice to meet you. Really nice," Axel added, grinning. He took the empty glass from Roxas' hand, his warm fingers brushing over the vampire's. "Refill's on me," he said lowly, nodding at the cup. The redhead reached for the bottle of Kahlua, pouring the coffee colored liquor into the glass. "Are you new in town?"

"Just got in a couple of nights ago," Roxas murmured, taking the refilled glass. "I'm staying with some family."

"Ah, anyone I know?" Axel asked casually. He had come to know most of the town's inhabitants, even those who didn't come to his bar, through word of mouth. Rumors and stories made up the bulk of his conversation with the bar's patrons, giving him a good idea of who to look out for.

"Maybe," Roxas said, shrugging. "I haven't seen them in quite some time. Leon's a bit of a homebody, but Riku--"

"Riku?" Axel dropped the glass he'd been drying, not even flinching as it shattered against the ground by his feet. "You're blood related to Riku? As in _the_ Riku? The one who's hanging around here now? Slayer-slayer extraordinaire?"

"I believe that's what I said," Roxas muttered, rolling his sea-blue eyes.

"Riku? As in, 'flayed-the-skin-right-off-of-a-vampire-hunter' Riku? _That_ Riku?"

"God, is he still doing that? Talk about a one trick pony," Roxas said exasperatedly, all too used to Riku's favourite methods of mutilation and murder. "That little stunt just never gets old for him."

"Riku, as in, 'I-like-to-torture-humans-and-even-other-vampires-just-for-kicks-sometimes' Riku?"

"He really hasn't changed, has he?"

"Riku, with the silver hair and the eyes and--"

"Yes, that Riku. He's my little brother. He was turned by the same man as I was, _unfortunately_." Roxas ran a finger lightly around the rim of his glass, a frown in place. "It's bad enough that I have to be around him _all the time_ now, I don't want to waste my alone-time talking about him."

"Oh. Point taken. I understand," Axel apologized, sweeping the broken glass on the floor into a neat little pile with his foot. "Tell me about something else, like… the guy who turned you. Leon, was it?'

"Yes, yes-- Leon." Roxas cleared his throat. The words rolled off of his tongue as the alcohol took effect, coaxing him to share some of his personal details with the young redhead. "Leon has quite the reputation for turning vampires. His first two tries didn't end well; then he made me 'out of love'," Roxas said with a snarl. "He didn't ask, didn't explain-- just did it. And I left him as soon as it was done, so then he went out and found Riku. Even that relationship didn't last-- Riku got flighty, taking off for a few years to cool down and then running back to Leon with arms wide open. It was pathetic. They finally accepted that they're not meant to be together that way, but only after Leon screwed up and made Demyx. Still, it took them long enough."

"That's a little harsh," Axel said quietly as he wiped down the counter. "It's got to be hard to love someone continuously for hundreds of years. I mean, we humans can barely make it for a couple decades."

"Vampires aren't built like humans are," Roxas whispered haughtily. "We're made to be together for extended periods of time. The problem is that we can't ever find the right person."

"I take it you're still looking for that "special" someone?" Axel asked cheekily, curving his fingers into air quotes as he spoke.

"Please. I gave up," the blonde muttered. His face was tinged pink by the recent blood and his slight drunkenness. Roxas folded his hands on the countertop and looked down, almost as if in prayer. "A waste of effort. What's the use in looking for something I'll never find?"

"Hey, don't be so negative," Axel said softly, resisting the urge to reach over and rub the vampire's shoulder soothingly. Being comforting was his area of expertise. "I mean, there's no rush, right? You've got eternity to search. And who knows? Maybe the right person is closer than you think." Axel bent over and put his face at eye-level with the blonde. He winked.

"Get the fuck away," Roxas growled, swiping lazily at the redhead. "What do you know? You're just a lowly--"

"Yeah, I know I'm just a human, but that doesn't make me a fucking idiot," the bartender growled, slamming a glass onto the counter a little harder than he'd intended. Living life as an ordinary human surrounded by extraordinary things creates issues in even the most stable person. "What makes you so great and wise? Being a vampire?" the redhead asked mockingly. "Ooooh, big man."

"Watch your mouth," the vampire warned, sitting up. He slid off of the bar stool and leaned against the counter, looking up dangerously at the impassioned redhead. "I don't care if you own this place, and I don't care if every vampire, demon, and spirit within a fifty mile radius will come after me; if I ever catch you alone, outside of this building, I'll bite right into that gorgeous neck of yours, understand?"

Axel said nothing, his lips drawn into a smooth, tense line and his brilliant green eyes watching Roxas unblinkingly. He swallowed loudly, a sound he thought everyone in the room must have heard, as the blonde smiled at him-- a carnal, seductive smile. As he felt a deep twinge of fear mixed with fascination, Axel was certain that that same smile had been the last thing for many men to see. The vampire turned on his heel, watching Axel from the corner of his eye as he left.

"Later," the redhead muttered as Roxas exited the bar, the tiny bell attached to the door jingling as it shut. He let out a deep sigh and put his hand over his heart, which was beating wildly. Roxas was definitely related to Riku-- that was for sure. They both had a skillful knack for putting him on the verge of a heart attack.

"That went well," Luxord muttered sarcastically, standing next to Axel and rummaging through the shelf of bottles.

"Damn, you're telling me. I think-- what the fuck, Luxord! You can't come back here! You're not an employee _or_ a managerial assistant. I know you were a pirate or whatever back in the day, and that rules don't matter much to you, but _I_ have an establishment to keep up. Rules and regulations, you know?" the redhead ranted, shooing the goateed vampire out from behind the counter. "You stay on that side. Oh, and pay your tab before I-- oh shit. That little fucker! He left without paying me."

Axel looked spitefully to the empty glasses that Roxas had left on the countertop. "Well, I suppose that really is the least of my worries concerning him." He strummed his fingers against the wooden surface, his lips pursed and his eyes narrowed. "I can't believe I gave him one on the house. What a waste. Well fuck. I got a vampire all pissed at me for nothing."

The vampire snorted. "What, were you tryin' to get laid?" Luxord glanced around the near empty room before resting an elbow against the counter and leaning conspiratorially toward Axel. "If you ask me, he'll be back before long." He grinned and clapped the redhead on the shoulder, nearly falling over in the process. "But that might not be a good thing."

"Yeah, yeah. I'm acutely aware of that. And you're piss-ass drunk and it's nearly dawn. Get a-goin'," Axel ordered, pushing Luxord toward the door. He waited for the rest of the vampires and monsters to clear out before scrounging around for his broom and dustpan. "He'll be back, I'm sure of it," he muttered as he swept up the broken glass and dumped it into the trash.

Axel stood and raked his long fingers through his brilliant red spikes nervously, letting air pass through his gritted teeth in a hiss. "What am I gonna do?"

* * *

Roxas turned his head at the sound of familiar footsteps. He let the body in his arms drop to the wet, grime-covered ground of the alley.

"Riku," he said pleasantly, facing the younger vampire and smiling. "Leon didn't send you, did he? It's barely after five…" Roxas knelt down to the corpse of his recent meal and wiped the blood from his hands on the young boy's clothing.

"No. I haven't been home yet," Riku said softly as he walked closer to the blonde. He cupped his older brother's chin and used his thumb to gently wipe away some of the blood on his face. "Where did you go?"

Roxas smirked as he stood, pulling Riku's hand from his face and holding it carefully between his own. "I went to the bar. The redhead's bar."

"You didn't," Riku groaned. "Roxas, you can't kill him. You'll start a riot! The whole town will turn on you."

"You're one to talk. You're practically a vampire hunter yourself, with all of our kind that you've played with," the blonde said venomously, challenging Riku to argue against him. The silver haired vampire stayed silent, his eyes roaming the ground. "Besides, you don't have to worry about the redhead," Roxas continued, pulling his brother close and twining their arms together as they walked out of the dim alley. "He's cocky and he's fiery and he's mouthwatering. I want him."

"You can't eat him," Riku persisted.

"Maybe I don't really want to eat him? Maybe I just want to have a good time."

"You can't turn him."

"Oh? Why not?" Roxas asked with mock innocence as they strode through the lobby and toward the elevator. The blonde pushed the button for the top floor as soon as they got inside, the doors pulling swiftly shut and enclosing the two.

"He belongs to the Slayer." Riku leaned against the polished wall of the elevator and crossed his arms, giving his brother a stern, warning look.

"Maybe that just makes me want him more," Roxas said teasingly, grabbing Riku's face and pulling it close to his own. "You're not the only one who wants what they can't have."

Riku wriggled free of Roxas' grasp and stared at him in silence. They rode the elevator the rest of the way without speaking, waiting for the chime that would signal their arrival to the penthouse floor.

* * *

Riku's jaw dropped as he opened the door to the apartment. He stopped in his tracks, blocking the doorway.

"Riku, get the fuck out of the way," Roxas complained from behind him. "I'm in no mood for…"

The blonde trailed off as he peered around Riku's shoulder to get a look at what had stopped the silver haired man. Sitting in the recliner with his feet propped up on the coffee table and the remote control in his hands was a young, sandy blonde wearing one of Riku's shirts and Leon's black pajama pants, which were so long the engulfed his feet.

The mulleted blonde looked over at the two in the doorway in surprise. The shock quickly gave way into glee, and he grinned widely. "Hey, you guys have a _plasma_!" he said excitedly, pointing to the sleek flat screen on the wall.

"Demyx," Roxas hissed. He pushed Riku out of the way and slammed the door shut, seething. "What the fuck are you doing here? Why are you in _our_ house? Does Leon know you're even here?"

"Um, it's just as much my house as it is yours," Demyx said snottily, a 'DUH' expression plastered on his face. "And yeah, Leon knows I'm here. He went out to get me some dinner." Demyx stood and raced across the room to Riku, who was silently leaning against the counter.

"Riku, Riku, Riku, Riku," the dirty blonde chanted as he ran, finally leaping towards the vampire and hugging him. "I missed you, man. Oh! And I borrowed one of your shirts to sleep in, hope ya don't mind."

"Nah," Riku said quietly, gingerly patting the overexcited boy on the back. "It's okay."

"That's great! See? This is why you're my favourite," Demyx cooed, shooting a dark glare at Roxas from over Riku's shoulder. "OhmyGod," the mokawked blonde started, taking a deep breath. "I can't believe I finally got to see you and you'll never guess all the cool stuff I've been doing lately and I can't wait to tell you all kindsa stories and I GOT TICKETS! To the Nine Inch Nails concert! You can totally come with me, and so can Leon, and even Roxas, if he can manage to pull that colossal stick out of his ass."

"S-stick?" Roxas stuttered angrily. "There is no _stick_. I just hate you. Plain and simple."

"Well that's just plain rude!" Demyx exclaimed, looking offended. He drew himself up and puffed out his chest, trying his best to look imposing. "And I'm telling Leon when he gets back."

"Tattletale," Roxas accused.

Demyx gasped. "Mean-face!"

"Shithead!" Roxas countered, fangs bared, pointing angrily at the younger vampire. "And with shitty hair, too. It's a fucking trailer-trash _mullet_, and stop denying it."

"Asshole!" Demyx shouted, his normally easygoing attitude thrown out the window. "You wouldn't know what love or kindness or decency were if they took turns ass-fucking you in a back alley!"

"Fucktard!"

"Bitch!"

"Hey now, kids," Riku tried to interrupt, stepping between his feuding brothers and physically separating them. He'd seen fights like this escalate into much worse. "Let's all settle down," he said calmly, feeling very much like Leon. Maybe he was channeling the authoritative brunette.

Riku sent the other two into opposite corners, hoping that Leon would get back before Roxas and Demyx had a chance to go at it again. His prayers were answered when the leather-clad brunette walked in the door a few minutes later.

Leon paused as soon as he entered the room, sensing the tension. "What happened?" he asked coldly, looking directly at Riku.

"What do you think?" Riku asked back, arching an eyebrow as he nodded his head toward the two smoldering vampires.

"Roxas, go to your room. I'm going to come and talk to you in a minute. Demyx, get over here."

Roxas paced angrily toward his room. "You _always_ take their sides," he said venomously, looking briefly at Riku but focusing mainly on Demyx. "Just because he's the baby, you let him have his way." He slammed the door shut and turned up the music in his room, the sound of heavy metal in Finnish blaring.

Leon clicked his tongue against his teeth. "How is it that even after two hundred years, Roxas is still your typical, angsty teenager?" he asked sardonically. The remaining two boys sniggered at this.

"You want a drink?" Demyx asked the brunette with a smile. "I can do margaritas."

"I want you to avoid antagonizing your brother. You too, Riku. And who taught you about alcohol?" Leon asked amusedly.

Demyx just winked and bounced toward the cabinet, pulling out a glass and some salt.

Riku fingered at the paper bag sitting on the countertop, the one that Leon had brought home. He pulled down the edge to peer inside, but his hand was promptly slapped away.

"That's for Demyx," Leon warned, walking past the silver headed boy to check on the blonde that was locked in his room.

Riku could smell that it was blood in the bag, but that it wasn't human. He could only assume that Demyx had actually decided to give up humans and "go veggie", if you will. That meant buying blood off of butchers and the like, and sometimes raiding blood banks for a taste of the good stuff. He cringed at the thought. Riku loved the feeling of the kill. He didn't know how Demyx could give that up so easily. He watched the younger boy as he busily fixed up the kitchen, humming to himself.

"Demy?" Riku asked as he leaned against the counter, folding his arms against the cold, marble surface. He absently noted how similar it was to his own flesh. "Have you ever… really liked a human? Wanted them? Not for food, but…" He squinted his eyes as he tried to describe the feeling.

"Yup," Demyx said cheerily. He whirled around to face his older brother, imitating his position and grinning. "His name's Zexion, and he's _awesome._ And he totally doesn't care that I'm a vampire. In fact, he loves it."

"You do? A-and you told him?" Riku asked, his eyes widening. That was against the rules. You weren't supposed to reveal yourself to unknowing humans. Demyx had gotten rebellious-- he was finally growing into the hair, Riku figured.

"Yup," Demyx said again, nodding. "I mean, he already believed in us. He was kind of… in a vampire fan club. You know."

Riku did know, from rumors of such things. Groups of naïve humans that loved vampires, romanticized them. They would offer themselves in return for a vampire's promise of eternal life, only to be taken advantage of and eaten. Yet groups like this still sprang up everywhere, much to the delight of numerous, hungry nightwalkers.

"He wants me to turn him. And to be honest, I think he'd probably make a better vamp than I do," Demyx laughed, looking distant. "He's really into that kind of thing, kinda dark. But I don't want to take that chance yet. Not after what happened when Roxas tried, you know? I couldn't live with myself if I accidentally killed Zexy."

The pale haired vampire nodded, his lips pressed into a thin line. "I think I'm in love with a human," Riku admitted suddenly, looking grim. But it felt good to get those thoughts off of his chest, and Demyx was probably the only person he knew who wouldn't treat him like an oddity for it. "Or… something."

"Oh? _Oh_? Way to go! See? They're not so bad once you get to know 'em," Demyx said encouragingly, far too excited to make Riku comfortable, giving him an emphatic thumbs up. "Just remember: nibble, don't bite."

"But it's the Slayer."

Demyx's smile faltered, but Riku had to give him credit-- the blonde was incredibly good at taking things in stride. Demyx thought this over for a second and then grinned. "Awesome! That means you like… get an instant 'get-out-of-a-staking' free card, right?"

"I guess," Riku said uncertainly. "It feels good to have someone to talk to about this, someone who isn't… you know. Roxas."

"Yeah, he's sort of wound-up in tradition, eh? And he's still a little moody, I see."

"A tad. A smidgen, maybe."

"I noticed that when he nearly bit my head off earlier," the dark blonde laughed throatily. He smiled and softly punched Riku's jaw. "Let's get to bed. I've got big plans for tomorrow night. Big plans."

Riku decided he didn't want to know, opting instead to tiptoe back to his room and try to get some shuteye. But the constant mulling over his situation with the Slayer kept him tossing and turning, wondering how he was supposed to go about getting what he wanted.

* * *

**Aha! Demyx is the mystery brother. Surprise. Not much RikuSora going on… which will be corrected. **

**Review and I will love you forever. Unless you find that creepy. **


	4. Penumbra

An update! Yay! This chapter goes to Cracked Moon and my beta, combo-bass.

**Note: I don't own Wheaties. (But I wish I did, I guess.)**

"_What more can they tell you?_

_I am neither good nor bad but a man…_

_And good, this danger_

_is danger of love, of complete love_

_for all life,_

_for all lives…"_

_---Pablo Neruda, And because Love battles_

* * *

Cloud sat hunched over his laptop, the glowing screen illuminating his dim living room. The clock atop his TV set ticked away the late night hours. He curled up on the sofa, his pajama clad knees pulled up against his chest and his sock-covered feet rubbing together.

_ninebythree582: n/a/s/l?_

_SilverLining: Cloud/25/m/Sunnydale_

The blonde watched the chatroom on the screen intently, one finger poised over the mouse as he hovered the arrow over the 'escape chat!' button.

'_Dear God, what have I come to?'_ Cloud asked himself in near disgust. His complete lack of a social or romantic life had driven him to internet dating, and so far he'd gotten mixed results-- his dating site of choice seemed to have quite a number of borderline stalker-perverts, all of whom seemed to be interested in Cloud. He'd deleted and reposted his profile on the site at least a dozen times, always driven back by desperate loneliness.

_ninebythree582: saw your pic. verrry sexy. _

_SilverLining: Uh… thanks_

_ninebythree582: what are you wearing? _

_SilverLining: Clothing. Of the cotton variety._

_ninebythree582: got any pics without the clothes? wanna take some? or we could just meet at_

Cloud sighed and clicked the escape button, effectively ending the awkward internet moment. He leaned back against the puffy cushions, frowning. He clicked around the site a bit more, scrolling down the list of people who'd left messages after viewing his profile page.

'_Creepy, creepy, creepy, way too old, creepy, female, creepy,' _he mentally dismissed each user as he scrolled past their vital info and picture, not even bothering to read their comments. He felt more and more disheartened as each second dragged on. _'Creepy, creepy, another female, freaking ancient, way too young--'_

The blonde paused. Next to a picture of a pleasingly handsome, scarred, grey-eyed brunette was a rather lengthy message. Unlike the usual comments, this one wasn't asking for naked pictures or suggesting cyber sex; it seemed like the brunette-- Griever, according to his username-- was genuinely interested in him, and who he was.

Cloud told his fluttering heart not too get its hopes up. He clicked on Griever's profile and practically had to tear his eyes from the picture of the sultry man to read his bio.

_Griever_

_Name: Leon_

_Age: 26_

_Hometown: Bremen, Germany_

The page went on to list his favourite books (many of which Cloud also enjoyed) to his political and social beliefs (which Cloud found himself in agreement with quite often) and, most surprisingly, his current location-- Sunnydale. The blonde teacher nearly bounced in his seat when he read that the brunette-- Leon, he reminded himself-- was so close. Not to mention, he was incredibly gorgeous and intelligent _and_, it seemed, well-traveled.

Cloud pulled the laptop more securely onto his lap and grinned, preparing to type an equally lengthy reply.

* * *

Roxas pillowed his head on Leon's shoulder, nuzzling lightly against his neck. "What are you doing?" he asked lazily, his hand lackadaisically tracing the older man's outline from thigh to shoulder.

"Just exploring the internet. Technology is an amazing thing, isn't it?"

Leon smirked at the picture on the screen before him; a smiling, exuberant looking blue-eyed, blonde-haired man in his mid-twenties. The man was too sweet for words, looking all at once both innocent and world-weary. Leon could sense the eagerness in the blonde's reply and read it over with hungry eyes.

Roxas saw the look on the older vampire's face and looked at the laptop with renewed interest. "A dating site? What on earth are you doing on a dating site?" he asked quizzically. A moment later a sly, knowing smile spread across his lips. "I see. Getting some dinner delivered? God, you're so antisocial. What hapless sap have you managed to reel in this time?"

Leon arched a dark brow but offered no information on the subject. "I think you should go take Demyx for a walk. He needs to burn some energy."

"_What?_ I'm not his babysitter!" Roxas recoiled from the older vampire's shoulder reproachfully.

"Fine. Then we can all pay the price when it's time to go to sleep and Demyx is still bouncing off the walls, _literally_."

"Ugh, fine. I'll take the brat out for a while. But you owe me, Leon. I want one of those new Wii things as compensation for my suffering. And some games that I can kick Riku's ass in."

* * *

Riku let his feet swing freely, his legs dangling in the empty air a dozen feet off the ground.

"So, do you guys have to follow any rules?" Sora leaned on the windowsill, his chin resting on his open palm. The night air was cool and soft, gently pulling the curtains as it blew into and out of the boy's bedroom.

Riku studied him appreciatively. The Slayer really was suited well for moonlight; the silvery light could have clashed with his golden-tinted, sun-darkened skin, but instead offered a pleasing contrast. "Mostly just what our sire tells us. There are rules, yes. Laws we have to conduct ourselves by. But it's difficult for your kind to understand; our laws are complicated, changing in some ways but remaining ancient in others-- and there are always exceptions."

"Such as?"

"Such as how a vampire can only kill another vampire if they are older. That's a matter of respect," the vampire said matter-of-factly from his perch in the tree just outside of Sora's bedroom. "And some things get enforced differently. Like how we aren't supposed to reveal ourselves to humans, yet powerful vampires get away with it all the time."

"Like Dracula?"

"Yes, like Dracula." Riku rolled his eyes. "He's such a bastard. Not very good looking, either."

"I'm shocked. For serious," he added upon seeing Riku's inquisitive look. "I mean, the vast majority of vamps I've seen are either extremely gorgeous or, at the very least, pretty hot. It's totally not fair."

"No one said life is fair," Riku winked from his place on the branch. "And the same with death."

"Depressing." The brunette pouted. He fingered the necklace around his neck, feeling over the points of the silver crown pendant absently as he mulled the unfairness of it all.

"Maybe so." The silver haired vampire looked thoughtful and considerate for a moment. "We also have the Palliata, which is a group of older vampires that handle transgressions and whatnot."

Sora smirked. "And when you say 'older'--"

"I mean around a thousand years old, yes. They're pretty damn ancient, the whole lot of them. I think Xemnas is the oldest. Then there's Xigbar, Xaldin, Marluxia, Larxene, Saix, and all the rest. You never want to cross those ones."

"I don't plan on challenging any ancient, powerful vampire societies any time in the near future, actually," Sora grinned and chuckled, leaning a bit further out the window. He kept a careful eye on the vampire sitting just feet away; it was difficult, he realized, to remember that this man was still technically the enemy.

Riku was disarmingly charming, the ease of his movements and his gentle smile putting Sora into a dangerously comfortable sense of security. The Slayer had to constantly remind himself that the vampire was not tame, no matter how friendly he seemed at the moment. Sora had heard enough stories about Riku to know what the vampire was capable of doing.

'_Still, it's not like I can afford to fight him now,'_ the brunette mused. _'He's no pushover. I really don't know if I could beat him or not. I'll have to take whatever truce I can get, at least until I know I can handle him.'_ He contented himself with the nightly company of the strange, talkative vampire, always gleaning what information he could about vamp night-life and Riku in particular.

"Excellent," Riku snickered. "Don't you go picking fights with any immortal evil just yet, Slayer."

"Sounds like you're not too fond of the Palliata, considering they're vampires, too," Sora noted, making sure he sounded less curious than he actually was.

"Nah… they're a bunch of old tight-asses about everything. My family doesn't exactly have the best history with them, either." Riku paused and listened to the throaty hoot of an owl some distance away. He smiled at the openly wondering look on the Slayer's face. "I guess you want to know why, eh? Well, there are certain customs and procedures we're supposed to follow before turning humans--- you have to inform the Palliata of your intentions; make sure they say it's okay to turn them; have an older, more experienced vampire waiting nearby in case things go wrong; and usually you have to kill all of the intended fledgling's immediate family members, so they won't be tempted to expose themselves to their old loved ones."

"_What?_" Sora exclaimed, looking near murderous. "They have to do _what_? That's-that's even _more_ horrible!" he shouted, slamming his palm against the windowsill with enough force to leave an impression on the hard wood. "Uh, that's just plain _sick_--"

"Relax, Slayer. Very few vampires actually follow all of those rules, and the Palliata don't normally make a big deal about it. Like I said, a lot of rules don't really get enforced. But for vampires like my sire, Leon, they do, if for nothing other than to make an example of someone. Leon tried twice to make vampires out of people he loved. The first was a girl from his hometown in Germany, named Rinoa. She died because he was young and didn't know what he was doing. He lost control and killed her. They let that one slide; that sort of thing just happens sometimes. The second one was what really infuriated the Palliata though-- Leon tried to turn Seifer Almasy, a very talented vampire hunter. _Not a Slayer_," he added upon seeing the amazed look on Sora's face. "Just a very skilled hunter. And the Palliata were furious-- they were against their relationship from the beginning."

"Forbidden love," Sora whispered quietly, feeling a little queasy. He knew this story wouldn't have a happy ending.

"Very forbidden," Riku said with a nod. His breath hitched for a moment, and he watched Sora with troubled eyes. "The process of turning a human is long and difficult and painful," he continued sullenly, putting a great deal of effort into avoiding Sora's eyes. "Less than halfway through, the Palliata interrupted Leon and Seifer. They took Leon away to punish him, and they left Seifer to bleed to death." The vampire clenched his jaw. "And they continue to punish Leon to this day, as if he hasn't gone through enough."

"That's so sad," Sora sighed, his brow furrowing. "Was it really so horrible to them? That he loved a vampire hunter?"

Riku smiled softly, a gentle, mocking smile. "Of course. They say it's _indecent_, and treason to boot. But do you want to know the real reason? The real reason they won't allow hunters to be made into vampires?" he asked in conspiratorial tones, leaning over the open space between them, closing the gap to mere inches. "They're scared it will lead to someone making a Slayer into a vampire."

"What's so scary about that?"

Riku laughed, but his eyes were as cold and lifeless as precious jewels. "Don't you get it? A vampire's strength is mainly determined by two things: the strength of the sire and the strength of the human. A powerful human makes for a powerful fledgling, and while vampire hunters are typically humans imbued with a tiny fraction of the same power that Slayers receive, Slayers are as strong as humans get. A Slayer turned vampire-- especially if the sire was already old and powerful-- would have unimaginable strength. Even the Palliata wouldn't stand a chance against one." He looked almost gleeful at the prospect, swinging his feet excitedly.

Sora frowned but remained silent, carefully going over what Riku had said. "So… what is it you're looking for? Like that night in the crypt?"

Riku licked his lips and watched the Slayer with thirsty eyes. "Can I tell you, Slayer? Can I trust you?"

"Oh, come on, Riku," Sora whined weakly. "Who am I gonna tell? The Palliata?"

The silver haired man smirked and raked a hand through his hair thoughtfully. "I suppose not… I'm looking for a weapon, Slayer. A very powerful, very forbidden weapon."

"A weapon?" Sora raised his brows. "For what? Are you trying to start a revolution or something?" he asked incredulously. The brunette didn't know much about vampire society, but he could guess that this was the kind of talk that got rebellious vampires killed.

"Maybe." Pale lips twisted into a hopeful smile. "I think… you can help me find it, Slayer. Would you like to?"

"If I do, will you promise to tell me what it is exactly that you're looking for? And what you're planning to do?"

"Of course! I give you my word," Riku grinned, crossing his heart with two of his fingers. "Cross my heart."

"Okay. So when do you want to go looking for it?" Sora sat on the ledge of the window, his legs and feet hanging precariously. He didn't recoil as Riku loped closer across the branch, defying gravity as he leaned halfway between the tip of the branch and Sora's windowsill.

Riku looked to the moon, judging the hour. "We can go now, if you like."

* * *

Sora was beginning to regret his decision to accompany Riku. The vampire had wasted no time back at the Slayer's house, urging him to gather his weapons and embark. He'd led the brunette to an isolated area of the surrounding woods and proceeded to travel into a horrifically dark cave, assuring the Slayer along the way that he was not tricking him.

Sora walked beside the taller man, the two having compromised once again not to allow each other the opportunity to stab the other in the back. They remained as quiet as possible as they stepped carefully along the steep, sloping floor of the cave. Sora's breathing quickly became labored as he worked to keep his balance on the uneven floor of the pitch black cave.

"Here," Riku whispered, lighting a match and holding it before the brunette.

Sora wished he hadn't.

The walls and floor of the cave looked as though they'd been carved by wickedly long talons; ghastly, raking claw marks etched the walls and cast deep, flickering shadows. Dark rust-colored smears streaked the ceiling and the walls; the floor itself seemed to be bathed in the color. The reddish crust cracked and broke as they treaded across it, reminding Sora sickeningly of dried blood.

But the worst part, Sora easily decided, was the noise. A thousand high pitched squeaks echoed from further down the cave, as if warning them to turn back.

"We're getting close," Riku warned quietly. "Whatever you do, don't step on them. If you do, it'll know we're here."

"Don't step on what?" Sora asked shakily as the high pitched buzzing grew louder.

"You'll see," Riku said carefully.

Sora looked at him with pointed suspicion, but took a step closer to the vampire, walking as close to him as possible without stepping on his feet. When he first saw the things responsible for the noise, there were only a few. But with each step the swarm grew to a writhing, squealing mass.

Shiny, dark roaches covered the floor and the walls. They scurried from the vibrations of the oncoming feet, but the two still had to pick carefully between the panicked insects. Sora wanted so badly to close his eyes, to at least block out the sickening forms of the crawling roaches, but he knew he had to keep them open to avoid stepping on any of the creatures. All around him he heard the irritating buzz, and the clatter as insects fell from the walls and the ceiling above them. Twice he thought he felt the bugs land on his head or shoulder, but he was too frightened to divert his eyes from the floor.

A nearly indiscernible crunch brought Riku to a stop. He glared at Sora, who looked to his feet in horror. All at once the screaming of the roaches around them rose to a fever pitch. The insects clattered and shrieked incessantly, as if the crushing of one of their comrades had driven them over the edge.

"Great," Riku complained right in Sora's ear. "I guess there's no sense in being careful any longer. Let's go."

The vampire pulled Sora close and ran down the passage, paying no mind as he stepped on more of the scurrying bugs. Sora held on tightly, clinging to Riku's shirt as he sped quickly through numerous crevasses and half-hidden doors. Sora was surprised when they jolted to a stop, the sudden change in speed sending him stumbling. He pulled away from the vampire he'd been clinging to only a moment before, brushing off his clothes and trying to fight off the crawling sensation he still felt all over his skin.

"A depopulo demon," Riku whispered against the Slayer's ear, nodding his head in the direction of the massive creature before them.

Sora stared, open-mouthed, at the demon. It was large and hunched, with extremely long arms and massive claws, as long and curved as crescent moons. The back half of its body was hidden under a worn brown cloth; its skin was a mottled red, and its blank white eyes followed them leeringly. Yellow lines were painted down its hooked nose and its black lips were retracted back from pointed, yellow teeth in some crude mockery of a smile. It lay in the midst of a great horde of treasure, the precious metals and jewels giving off a faint glow. Sora had never seen anything like it.

Riku bowed his head slightly in recognition of the depopulo demon. Sora followed suit as the creature turned its blank eyes on him.

The crooked teeth parted and a thin, writhing tongue protruded from within, tasting the air as a snake's would. "A vampire _and_ a Slayer come to see me? I am flattered," the demon said in a raspy, grating voice. Sora shuddered at how similar it was to the noise of the frightened roaches.

Riku gestured to the vast number of objects surrounding the demon's body. "We want to know if you have something. A weapon."

"What weapon?" the demon asked interestedly, its lidless eyes widening slightly. Its tongue flicked excitedly, snaking ever closer to the two intruders.

"I don't know its name," Riku admitted, shying away from the creature's inquisitive tongue. "Only what it's capable of. I've… heard stories."

Sora watched in almost detached fear as the depopulo demon's tongue felt over Riku's body before finally wrapping around the vampire's pale neck. The tip of the tongue flitted across the bottom of Riku's jaw, slicing the skin and letting a line of blood seep out. The demon ran its tongue over the wound, tasting it thoughtfully.

"One of Leonhart's children, no doubt," it whispered gleefully. The tongue unraveled and whipped in Sora's direction, but was interrupted by a sharp blow from Riku.

"No," the vampire said acidly to the demon. He held up his hand and displayed a number of rings that circled each of his fingers.

'_Steel_!_'_ Sora realized. _'Demons hate steel. It burns them.' _He let out a thankful sigh at the reassuring weight of his swords strapped to his back, instantly understanding why Riku had advised him to bring steel weapons back at his house.

"Don't touch him," Riku warned the depopulo. He flexed both of his hands, displaying the amount of steel jewelry he was wearing as a subtle threat.

"Is he yours, then?" the demon asked in disappointment. A quick look of affirmation from Riku seemed to spark the demon's interest though, making it forget the let-down of a moment earlier. "Leonhart, Leonhart, yes, now I remember. You want revenge. You want a weapon, you say? You _have_ a weapon, Leonhart. You have the Slayer."

"I'm not his _weapon_," Sora interjected angrily, feeling offended by the suggestion. He was even more offended when he was outright ignored.

"No, no, no. I want the weapon I've heard in legends," Riku continued to insist, taking a cautious step closer toward the depopulo, staying just out of the range of its grasp. He cast a fleeting glance over his shoulder at Sora. "They say it's been destroyed, but I think it still exists. I want the thing that makes vampires invincible; impervious to sunlight, staking, beheading, and everything else. The weapon that makes its wielder truly immortal," Riku finished unsurely, as if realizing the impossibility of what he was asking for.

"I do not have it," the demon said simply. "You may look," it gestured with one clawed hand to the vast piles of gold and armament that filled the chamber. "But you will not find it. There is other treasure to be had, though."

Riku looked crestfallen. He scanned the golden, shimmering hills and slopes warily, his aquamarine eyes narrowed.

Sora stepped closer to the red-skinned demon, trying to show solidarity with Riku. "Do you know where it is?" he asked softly, feeling immensely vulnerable in front of the wicked looking being.

"If I did, I would not speak of it."

"But you don't know where it is?" Sora asked again, hoping to clarify this.

"No." The raspy voice sounded strangled for a moment. "But I do know what it is called-- the Crown of Oblivion."

Riku sucked in a quiet breath, his glowing eyes widened with excitement. "Thank you," he said with a slight bow as soon as he'd regained his composure. Sora followed suit again, mimicking Riku's actions as closely as possible. But Riku made no move to leave, simply staring at the depopulo afterward.

The brunette felt uncomfortable as he waited for the vampire to break eye contact with the demon and lead them back to the surface. "Um, thanks for being so helpful, Mr. Depopulo Demon," he interrupted nervously, waving impatiently for Riku to follow him out the chamber door. "We'll just be going now, _won't we Riku_?"

The Slayer was startled by the wheezing laughter from the oversized demon across the room. "You think I will let you leave, Slayer? After seeing my lair? No, neither of you will live. I will enjoy you in particular, Slayer. It has been so long since I have had the pleasure of eating your kind."

The demon hooked its claws into the bedrock of the floor and dragged itself forward, laughing and growling in excitement. Its lower body was a limp mass, dead weight pulled along by the steady work of its arms. The whip-like tongue writhed across the floor toward them, coiling and uncoiling like a venomous snake.

"Slayer, a sword would be a good idea now," Riku said harshly, startling the brunette. He pulled two heavy swords from the case on his back and handed one to the vampire. Riku wasted no time, immediately rushing toward the creature and hacking into its side; dark smoke issued from the gash where the steel had burned flesh. The high pitched wail the demon emitted was enough to make Sora's head ache and his ears ring.

The depopulo demon's tongue lashed toward him and encircled his wrist, cutting sharply into his flesh. Sora yelped and swung the heavy sword reflexively, slicing clean through the muscle. He watched the demon retract the bleeding stump of its tongue with a low hiss, its muscles flexing as it struggled to rake him with one of its outstretched talons.

Sora saw Riku attempting to scale the demon's back and decided to offer a distraction, hoping it would give the vampire an opening. The Slayer leapt toward one of the sinewy arms and brought the sword down on it heavily. The blade didn't pierce the skin, but the force behind it was enough to crack the underlying bone. The demon's red skin turned dark and smoky as the metal came in contact with it. Sora chopped at the limb again and again, shattering as much bone as he could, and dodging swipes from the demon's other hand all the while. It was just over a minute later when he saw Riku successfully climb onto the depopulo's back and deliver a forceful thrust into the back of its neck, the blade of the steel sword cutting through hide and muscle and spine.

The depopulo demon went limp, its face crashing to the floor. Its skin hardened and shriveled; the body looked as though it was rapidly drying out, crinkling and folding inward. Within a few minutes, it had collapsed into dust.

Sora let his sword clatter to the ground-- it was no good anymore anyway, the blade was spiderwebbed by tiny cracks and fractures. A quick inspection of Riku's revealed the same structural damage, but to a lesser extent.

"That… was insane," Sora panted, putting his hands on his knees as he leaned forward to catch his breath.

"I take it you've never fought anything so large?" Riku asked smartly.

"Not any time recent," the teen lied, not wanting to seem inexperienced. The Slayer stood and wiped the moisture from his brow. It was only when he saw the blood dripping down his arm that he remembered he'd been cut. "Shit," he muttered, feeling around in his pockets for a bandage. He didn't care how mature and self-controlled Riku seemed-- no vampire went unaffected by the sight or scent of blood.

He wrapped the wound on his wrist quickly and quietly, hoping the stench of the demon's lair and the earth around it had covered the scent of fresh blood.

"It's alright, Slayer. I could already smell it." Riku shrugged as he examined the pile of dust that had once been an ancient demon. "I stood far enough away to not be too badly tempted."

"Thanks." Sora smiled briefly as the vampire approached. He let his eyes gaze past the silver haired man and linger on the mountains of valuables that the demon had accumulated over the centuries. He bit his lip wistfully.

"Thinking about nabbing a few bits?" Riku snickered, following the path of the Slayer's eyes straight to the horde of treasure across the room.

"Are you kidding me? You've seen my house, Riku. I live in a piece of crap! It's held together by duct tape, super glue, and sheer will. I'd be crazy _not_ to think of taking some of this. It's not like it rightfully belonged to that thing, anyway…"

Riku snorted and leaned casually against the wall, letting Sora have his hopeful, wistful moment. "Well, don't. It's all cursed anyway. You'd die if you laid a hand on it."

Sora's sapphire eyes grew wide. "Really?"

"Really. Now let's go. We've wasted enough time down here."

* * *

Sora fell to the ground as soon as they exited the cave's entrance. "Oh, God. Every muscle in my arm is aching. And my wrist hurts. And something is poking me in my back. It feels like a twig. Maybe a rock."

Riku snorted and let his head swing back, letting him stare straight up at the sky. "Whine, whine, whine. You're a whiny baby, Slayer."

"Am not."

"Are too."

"Am not!"

"Whatever," the vampire laughed weakly, tousling his pale hair with one of his hands. "I'm too exhausted to care, really."

Sora coughed from his position on the ground, making a grunt of agreement. "Me too. You know, I could go for some coffee right now."

"Mmm, and I could go for the blood of someone who just drank coffee," Riku grinned jokingly. "But don't worry, I wouldn't do it around you."

"How considerate," Sora mumbled, rolling over onto his side. "I really hope you were kidding and wouldn't do it period, by the way." He propped his head up on his bent arm and picked a long stem of grass; he spun the grass between his thumb and forefinger thoughtfully.

"Does it bother you that I drink blood?" Riku knelt down beside the Slayer, laying his palms flat against the earth and feeling the grass between his fingers.

"Uh, it's not so much the blood drinking as the horrible, violent killing that bothers me."

"You violently kill vampires," Riku pointed out rather crossly. "Sounds a little hypocritical, doesn't it?"

"It's completely different," Sora argued, his lips curving down into an angry pout. "I'm trying to protect the people you kill. And it isn't even like you vamps just kill for survival; you guys do it for pleasure all the time!"

"Not all of us do."

"_You_ do."

Riku stared down at the brunette with contained frustration, his eyes showing a great deal of confliction. "I _did_. Past tense."

"So you're suddenly a changed vamp?" Sora asked mockingly, leaning dangerously close to the vampire. He knew it was unwise to challenge Riku so directly, but there was an inexplicable urge to push the silver haired vampire, to crack his calm, cool demeanor. He knew there was still a ruthless monster inside of Riku, and all it would take was a tiny nudge to bring it out. _'Things were so much easier to understand when he was just a monster, just evil.'_

"I am. I'm trying to be. You don't make it easy, Slayer," Riku growled.

"Why? I don't freakin' understand you, or what you're doing, or why. You really, honestly expect me to believe that you woke up one morning and decided to turn over a new leaf?" Sora snorted and fell back against the ground, his head pillowed by the thick cushion of leaves and grass. He stared up at the stars, counting the brightest.

Riku let the silence sink in for a moment before speaking. "No, I don't. That's not what happened."

"Then what happened? Enlighten me." Sora lifted his arms to the sky and then let them fall back to the earth, stretching them out on either side of his body.

Riku slowly crawled next to him, making his movements deliberate enough to show he intended no harm. He planted one hand on the ground beside the brunette's head and leaned down, the tip of his nose brushing against Sora's intimately. "You're not entirely wrong about the waking up part, but it's also more than that. I had a change of heart. A conversion experience, if you will. It happens to humans. It can happen to us."

"What brought that about?" Sora asked weakly, shying away from the vampire above him. He could feel the chill emanating from Riku, the iciness from where the vampire's body was lightly pressed against him. Sora felt lost in the aquamarine eyes that loomed over him, aroused by the man's confident smirk.

"You."

Sora clicked his teeth together nervously. "Me?"

"You."

Riku let his lips touch the Slayer's, smirking as the boy gasped almost imperceptibly. _'Am I that cold?' _he wondered curiously, watching the boy's reaction with careful attention_. 'It has been an awfully long time since I ate… I guess I don't have anything warm in me right now.'_

Sora was shell-shocked when Riku pulled up and away. The brunette sat up and let his mouth hang open. "W-what the hell was that?"

"A poor excuse for a kiss, that's what," the vampire grinned teasingly. He noted how bright the Slayer's cheeks and ears had turned, how hot he'd grown in just a matter of seconds. Riku nearly shivered with excitement at the heat the boy was practically radiating. "What, was that your first?"

"Uh," Sora stalled for a moment before launching into a strain of confused lies. "No. Maybe. I mean, no. It totally wasn't my first kiss. I kiss people all the time. I make-out with near strangers in back alleys every other night. I have no shame. If I had a dollar for every time I kissed someone, I'd be filthy rich and able to retire at twenty and live a life of quiet seclusion. Assuming I live to be twenty, of course," he added sullenly, well aware of the notoriously short life spans of Slayers.

"So, in other words, that was your first kiss." Riku laughed at the blushing Slayer, shaking his head slowly from side to side. "And it wasn't even a good one. I'll do better next time," he smiled, the glint in his eyes dancing happily.

"Next time?" Sora's face held traces of both excitement and hesitation. He smiled for a split second and then, as if realizing that a Slayer should never look forward to kissing a vampire, tried his best to look totally disinterested with the idea. "Well, whatever."

"I think you should head home, Slayer," Riku advised as he stood. "Get away from here before something big and bad senses that the depopulo demon is gone now and its treasure is up for grabs."

"What about you?" Sora rose and brushed the grass and leaves from his clothes. He'd caught himself staring at the vampire's lips more than once after their quick kiss, much to his embarrassment. He shied away from the silver haired man, brushing his hand through his hair anxiously.

"I'm going home, too, but not before I know you're safe in your house."

"I don't need you to worry about me," the brunette protested petulantly. "I've taken care of myself for the last five years, you know." He dug his feet into the earth stubbornly. "I'll stand here as long as I damn well please."

Riku raised his pale eyebrows in amusement. "I'd like to see you try."

"Oh yeah? Well-- hey, w-what are you doing? Stop it! S-stop!" Sora flailed wildly as Riku grabbed him by the waist and easily flipped him over his shoulder. "Riku! You put me down this instant! Don't make me stake you, Riku. Cause I will if-- oh God, you did _not _just slap my ass."

The vampire responded with a chuckle and took off at a mild trot, holding tightly to the wriggling body strewn over his shoulder. "You're going home whether you like it or not, Slayer. Stop being such a whiner."

"Stop being so annoying. And quit touching my butt!"

* * *

Riku strummed his fingers against the glossy marble countertop, the rhythm hurried and erratic. The silvery vampire looked questioningly to Demyx, who was standing by the microwave across the kitchen.

"How do I make him trust me?"

"Eh?" Demyx placed a coffee mug inside the microwave, slammed it shut, and set it to heat for forty-five seconds. "Make who trust you?" he asked confusedly, alternately frowning and licking the silver spoon he'd used to stir his glass.

"The Slayer," Riku whispered loudly. He looked pointedly across the room to Roxas, swinging his head slightly to let Demyx know that he'd rather not get the older blonde involved in the conversation.

"Oh, right…" The mulleted blonde tapped his chin as he concentrated. A loud beep from the microwave startled him from his pondering.

"You have human friends," Riku continued as his brother busily crushed cereal into the mug and stirred the chunky contents happily, "so you should know how to deal with them."

"Right, right, right," Demyx agreed as he slid onto a bar stool opposite Riku. He set down his coffee mug and grinned. "Okay, well, this goes for just about all relationships. First things first: you have to keep promises. If you say you'll be there, be there. If you promise not to do something, don't do it. That's rule numero uno."

"Uh, okay."

"Secondly, be sure to share personal information. Let them into your life, you know? Having that kind of background info will give him insight into your behavior and feelings, and he'll feel more connected. And be sure to listen when he does the same. That one's really hard for us because we have so much more history than they do, and they've had so little time to figure themselves out compared to us." Demyx paused to spoon a mushy lump of the contents of his cup into his mouth, but didn't mind speaking with his mouth still full. "Number three: show that you're willing to compromise, that you'll take his feelings into consideration, even if it's inconvenient for you."

"Are you serious?"

"Totally. But trust me, Riku. This stuff is foolproof. Trust is the basis for every relationship," Demyx said sagely, emphasizing his words with a flick of his spoon. The action sent a spray of reddish chunks flying onto the countertop.

Riku wrinkled his nose and sat back. "What the hell are you eating, Demy?"

"Sheep's blood with Wheaties. It's the breakfast of champions, dude!"

"Wheaties?" Riku felt sick.

The youngest vampire nodded enthusiastically. "Gives it texture. Have you tried blood n' tofu yet? Damn, that stuff's good." The sandy haired boy shoveled in another bite, munching on his bloody cereal contentedly.

"What does it taste like?" Riku asked curiously, leaning forward. He'd spurned the idea of giving up human blood for so long… but now it seemed a fraction less awful. Best of all, the Slayer would _have_ to admire him for abstaining from humans. _'And admiration could lead to a lot of other feelings as well,'_ the vampire thought gleefully.

"It tastes great! Here, I'll let you try some." Demyx hurried to the fridge, where he removed a plastic container filled with sheep's blood. He poured a small amount into a cup for Riku and heated it to body temperature. The blonde set the warm mug down in front of the older vampire, smiling reassuringly.

Riku traced the rim of the cup hesitantly, wondering whether or not he should hold his nose as he drank it. "Ah, well. Bottoms up, I guess." He lifted the cup to his lips and poured the blood into his mouth before he could think twice and change his mind. He braced himself for anything-- disgust, revolt, nausea-- as he felt the warm liquid slosh down his throat.

"So?" Demyx inquired anxiously, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he waited for Riku's opinion.

The silver haired vampire licked his lips and wiped the corners of his mouth, where crimson fluid had stained his skin. He grimaced slightly. "Not that bad. Kind of a bitter aftertaste, but it's much better than I expected." Riku himself looked surprised, having been steadfast for so long in his assumption that human blood was the only acceptable kind.

"Great, now you can try it with the Wheaties!"

"I'll skip the Wheaties, thanks," Riku told a dejected Demyx, who hugged his beloved Wheaties box close.

"Oh, okay… well, let's tell everyone the great news!" Demyx beamed, his voice rising to a near frantic level in his excitement.

"What great news?" Leon asked suddenly from behind the two, nearly making Riku fall out of his chair.

"Oh, uh…" the silver haired boy's traveled all around the room, looking at everything but Leon. "I-I think I want to be a… vegetarian. Or, I'll try, at least."

The tall brunette looked skeptical yet accepting, and took the announcement quite well; Roxas, on the other hand, was choking on his tea across the room.

"You want to be a vegetarian?" Leon asked softly, his eyes hard as he searched his blood-child for confirmation and clarification.

"Y-yeah," Riku coughed, looking to the floor. "I just… I think I don't want to kill people. To try it."

Roxas snorted disgustedly from across the living room. "Ugh, you're going to be one of those touchy-feely hippie types like Demyx, aren't you?"

"Hey," Demyx protested with a pout, pointing a menacing finger toward his blonde brother. "Leon said, 'If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all', remember?"

"Psh, dumbass," Roxas mumbled, flipping open the newspaper loudly. "I knew that hippie shit was contagious…"

While Demyx and Roxas continued to argue, Leon led Riku back into his room. As the brunette was busy rummaging through the drawers of his dresser, the younger vampire took in as many details of his sire's room as he could. Leon generally didn't allow them into his room-- though he tended to be more lenient with Demyx, sometimes allowing him to stay the night in his bed-- and Riku found every object an interesting mystery.

The master bedroom was dark and elegant. Many portraits lined the walls and shelves: some Riku recognized-- painted family portraits consisting of himself, Roxas, and Leon, in addition to a few recent photos of Demyx. Others were less familiar, but Riku could guess who they were: people from Leon's past, before he'd had Roxas and Riku and Demyx. People he only knew from stories. He guessed that the picture of the pale, handsome, scarred blonde with emerald eyes on the wall above the desk was Seifer, and that the warm looking, chocolate haired girl by the armoire was Rinoa.

"Here it is," Leon smiled, pulling something silver and shining from a small, dark green velvet bag. He pressed it into Riku's palm and gave him a small smile.

Riku turned the cool metal over in his hands. It was a ring, silver and lustrous; a stylized lion, similar to the one on the pendant that he often saw his sire wearing, decorated it. Small, faint scratches etched the bright silver, showing the wear of time on the soft metal. "Why are you showing this to me?"

"I'm giving it to you." Leon pulled a fine silver chain from the bag and looped it through the ring. He gestured for the younger vampire to come closer, speaking softly as he did the clasp around the boy's neck. "It's a Griever. This ring and the pendant were both given to me by Seifer."

Riku found his eyes drawn to the portrait of the green eyed man against his will. He felt Leon run his long, strong fingers through his fine silver hair and leaned trustingly into the touch.

"I know what it's like to love someone you aren't supposed to. I understand those feelings, Riku. And I want you to know that I'll support you no matter what the Palliata or anyone else says."

"Thank you, Leon. I was worried… that you'd try to stop me. That you'd tell me I shouldn't get attached."

The brunette shook his head, wisps of silky chestnut hair falling over his eyes. "I worry for you, for what they'll try and do to you. But some things you just can't fight."

"Tell me about it," Riku sighed exasperatedly. "I think the Slayer's driving me mad. I mean, look at me! Did you ever think you'd see the day I'd even _consider_ going veggie?"

"Never."

"Exactly. It's madness, I tell you."

The two winced at the sound of shattering glass and raised voices from the living room.

Leon sighed. "Sounds like it's time to go break up your brothers. Get the broom, Riku," he ordered, pointing to a sturdy broom that was propped up in the corner.

"To clean up the mess?" Riku asked as he handed it over to Leon.

"To beat your brothers over the head with," the brunette explained with a smile. He left the room, harshly threatening to give the feuding vampires a sound thrashing if they didn't shut up.

Riku took the small velvet bag from the place Leon had left it and placed it back in the dresser drawer. He closed his hand around the ring hanging from the delicate silver chain around his neck, squeezing it tightly, and backed out of his sire's room, shutting the door with a click.

* * *

**The name of the old vampire society thing-- totally made it up. I've never taken Latin, ever, so just let me admit that before someone freaks out over my misuse of Latin-- I already know that I have no idea what I'm saying. But 'palliata' means 'cloaked' (according to the internets) and I thought it'd be a good name for them. 'Depopulo' means 'to pillage, lay waste, devastate', and that's pretty much what a depopulo demon does. **

**Review, please!**


	5. Lunar Rainbow

**This chapter is for SUPER LJOMI and Sarehptar! They, like so many others, left really awesome reviews that I never replied to. Extra thanks to Combo-Bass, who beta-ed insanely quickly.**

**I'm sorry… I used to be really good about replying to reviews, too! This chapter felt very wordy when I wrote it, but I hope y'all like it. I'm also hoping to include a little more gore and blood and such from now on… (After all, what good is a vampire fic without some?) **

"_So what there is in death surrounding me_

_opens in me a window out to living,_

_and, in the spasm of being, I go on sleeping._

_In the full light of day, I walk in the shade."_

_---Pablo Neruda, Full Powers_

* * *

"Hey, Mr. Grumpy Face," Axel cooed in Sora's face, his slender nose brushing the brunette's. "Why so sad, huh?"

Sora shut his eyes against the redhead. His cheek was flat against the cool, polished countertop of Axel's bar, his arms folded over the back of his head. "I'm so confused, Ax."

"By what?"

"_Everything_. I'm doing horrible in school, I'm totally sucking at hunting lately, and I still can't fathom Riku. You know what? I pretty much just fail at life."

"Uh, no you don't," Axel argued. "People who fail at life are dead." He grinned widely, hoping to cheer up his friend. When Sora chose to ignore him, Axel responded in the only way he knew how: by being so annoying that he simply could not be ignored.

"Poke," Axel whispered, jabbing Sora in the side. "Poke." He did it again. "Poke... Poke... Poke… Po--"

"What's your problem?" Sora finally screamed, slapping the offending finger away before it could poke him again. "Leave me alone. I don't feel like messing around right now, Ax."

"I'll leave you alone if you promise to cheer up some, how's that?" The redheaded bartender put a small cup of coffee and a bagel in front of his friend. "And have something to eat before you go home. It's cold out. You've gotta have something in ya."

Sora's stomach gave a low, prolonged growl in response to the offer, and the brunette took the bagel with a sniff. He tore it to bits and washed each piece down with a swig of coffee. Axel smiled approvingly and went back to cleaning the glasses behind the counter.

The bar was empty and quiet that night. Axel was glad, despite the fact that slow nights like this were bad for business. It was just him and Sora, and they shared precious few nights like this-- no vampires, no monsters, no fighting. It was as near to normal as either of them ever got.

Axel counted himself extremely lucky to have the Slayer's friendship. There were obvious reasons for that, such as the protection that being close with the Slayer offered against the local demon-folk. Though he didn't tell the boy, Axel was sure that the only reason he'd survived this long was by his connection to the Slayer. There used to be several bars like his throughout the city-- owned by humans, but with less-than-human customers-- and all but his own had been ended with the violent deaths of their owners. This was not an easy business-- one non-human's drunken rage could spell the end.

But more than that, Axel was happy to have someone to talk to and confide in. Vampires made for excellent conversation, but he knew better than to trust one. They could be chatting amiably, laughing, smiling, and then in a split second they could push you against a wall and slit your throat-- he'd seen it happen in this very bar. Demons could be very friendly and helpful, but sorting out the good from the bad was tricky. If you mistakenly placed your trust in a bad one, you would pay a terrible price. He'd seen that, too. Other people, other humans, made for good small talk, but they were just so ignorant of the dangerous things that lurked around them, the things that Axel saw on a daily basis. He tried to stay away from other people for fear of dragging him down into this world with him.

But Sora… Sora was good. He was human enough for Axel to trust, but inhuman enough to understand and relate. Axel admired him and loved him and pitied him all at once.

The bell above the door chimed softly as someone entered the bar. Sora stiffened, his body tensed as he prepared himself to fight, should the recently arrived demon give him any trouble. He slowly reached for the six-inch dagger that he'd stowed in one of the side pockets of his cargo pants.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Sora. Relax, it's just Beni," Axel said soothingly. The bartender sounded very relieved himself; Beni was, despite his appearance, a very gentle and peace-loving demon. Axel felt nearly as comfortable with Beni in the room as he did with Sora.

"Hey, Ax. Hey, Slayer," the tall, muscular, Iumentum demon greeted, a smile twisting his toothy snout. His rumbling voice, still shaded with a slight British accent, was thoughtful and concerned. "It's good to see the both of you, but I'm afraid I have bad news. Slayer, in the park a few blocks over, the one with the mermaid statues in it, there are two vampires what caught a human and are playin' around with him. If you hurry, you might be able to--"

Sora had already shut the door behind him by the time Beni finished that sentence. He didn't have time to wait for Axel, and honestly, Sora felt better knowing that the redhead was back in the bar under Beni's watchful eye. He was less likely to get hurt there. _'And,'_ Sora acknowledged to himself guiltily, _'he'd only slow me down if he came.'_

Sora made it to the park in record time; he rounded the massive stone gates, each side topped with a mermaid statue, and scanned the park. He smelled the air, hoping to catch a whiff of the faint but instantly recognizable vampire scent. The Slayer unexpectedly caught the scent, but before he even got the chance to track it a high, frantic voice caught his attention. He ran in the direction of the voice, leaping over a park bench and then two rows of hedges before stumbling onto the scene.

A large man in a dirty white shirt and faded jeans sat huddled against the brick wall that enclosed the park, cowering from his attackers. One of the vampires carried a length of pipe in his hand, which he swung around effortlessly, as though it were nothing more than a twig. His short black hair was dirty and matted. The other vampire, a teenage looking blonde with shoulder length hair, held the man's ripped jacket in his hands. He froze in the act of searching through the pockets and stared at Sora.

"Whadda you want, kid?" he sneered, his canines bared in anger.

"I want you to leave him alone," Sora said firmly as he pulled out a stake and wrapped his hand tightly around it. "And give him back his jacket," he added thoughtfully.

"Should I take him?" the larger vampire asked with a grin, twisting the pipe in his hands devilishly.

"No, you handle our friend by the wall," the blonde giggled, jerking his head to the man curled up on the ground. "I'll take the brat."

The blonde vampire slowly circled Sora, obviously wanting to play with him, hoping to draw this out. Sora was in no mood for it. He lunged quickly, taking the vampire by surprise and catching the front of his shirt. Before the vamp even had time to react, Sora drove the stake into his chest and pushed him backward; the blonde's body turned to ash as he collapsed into the bushes, his pale face twisted by stunned disbelief even as it disintegrated.

Sora quickly circled back, leaping toward the remaining vampire, who was still looming over the man. The brunette knocked him to the ground and grabbed the metal pipe, trying to wrestle it from his hands. The vampire groaned and pushed upward, knocking Sora off-balance and rolling on top of him. He pressed the pipe to the boy's throat and smiled maniacally. Sora kept his hands tight around the pipe, pushing it up and away from his throat as hard as he could, but the vampire's raw strength far outmatched his own.

"This ends here, kid. You were a fucking moron to interfere. You should have just minded your own damn business and kept on walking."

"This _is_ my business," Sora ground out, hissing as he felt the metal crushing his throat. "It's my duty. My _obligation_. I'm the Slayer, you jerk."

The vampire was visibly shocked, and for a second he relented. Sora felt this momentary weakness and shoved the pipe up as hard as he could into the vamp's face, gritting his teeth as he heard the resounding crack as it broke the jaw. The force knocked the dark haired vampire backward, his body crumpling back over his legs. Sora didn't hesitate, taking the metal bar into his hands like a baseball bat and bringing it down onto the vampire's head again and again, until bone caved in and blood came out in torrents. He grabbed the incapacitated vampire's arm and dragged him behind a wide fountain, out of sight of the still cowering man. Sora tried to stake the heavily wounded vampire, but found that most of his strength had been drained by the battle; only the tip of the wooden weapon had pierced the skin, and he didn't have the power to force it the rest of the way in.

The brunette crouched down next to the body, breathing heavily. Chocolate hair was plastered onto his forehead by blood and sweat, and he could taste both as they dripped down his face. He waited until he'd caught his breath and then, using the blood-covered pipe, hammered the wooden stake into the vampire's heart; he dissolved into dust and ash, only leaving behind the stake and a few pieces of jewelry.

Sora shoved the stake back into his pocket and walked back to the terrified man. "Are you okay? Let me help you up." He grabbed the shaken man's arm and heaved him onto his feet.

"Th-those guys, they w-w-were _monsters_," he sobbed, clutching desperately onto Sora's shoulder. "Monst--"

"Yeah, I saw. They were like beasts. It was crazy," Sora said calmly, gently prying the man's fingers away. His first priority was to convince this man that what he'd seen was not supernatural in the slightest. He lied to the man through his teeth. "It was probably some kind of gang thing--"

"No, they w-weren't human! God, their eyes--"

"They were probably crazy, or on some kind of drug. You know how gangs are, you read the papers. They must've gotten a hold of a bad batch of LSD or something." He half-dragged the stumbling man out of the park and in the direction of the nearest residential area.

"I… I guess you're right." The man didn't sound as though he believed a word of what the boy was feeding him, but he knew it made more sense than believing the ones that had attacked him had been monsters. He slumped against the boy. "They were mad. On something, like you said. But… the little one kept biting at me… said they were gonna eat me."

"Crazy talk. He was caught up in a hallucination and didn't even know what he was saying. I've heard of it happening." He really hadn't-- Sora didn't know much about drugs at all. But over the last few months of dealing with survivors like this, he'd found that it was by far the easiest explanation because most people didn't know much about drugs either. As far as they knew, LSD and ecstasy _could_ make otherwise normal people appear to be super strong and lightning fast, or make them speak dementedly about drinking blood. No, when it came down to it, the victims were only too willing to accept whatever semi-rational explanation Sora threw out.

"Yeah. Yeah, he was. Hallucinating. Look kid," the man said suddenly, standing up on his own and turning to face Sora. "I don't know what would have happened to me if you hadn't come along and--and taken care of those guys. I don't _want_ to know what would have happened to me. I'm grateful for you," he whispered, his jaw trembling. "Thank you, thank you." He shook Sora's hand and then quickly ambled off, still shaken.

Sora sighed and headed home, stopping by Axel's bar just to say goodnight.

* * *

"No, _you're_ the most annoying."

"No, _you_ are!"

"No, you!"

"Nuh-uh, it's _you_!"

"Please, you're beyond annoying! It's irrefutable! Stop arguing, you eighties reject."

"Shut up, Roxas! Let's get an unbiased opinion on this. Riku, which one of us is more annoying?"

The tall, silver haired vampire rolled his eyes and crumpled up the piece of stationery he'd been writing on, tossing the balled up paper onto a mountain of similar sheets in the garbage can. _'I hate being stuck in the middle.'_

"Demy, can't you see that I'm a little busy right now? Go ask Leon." Riku put another blank sheet of black-bordered stationery in front of him and stared at it, as if willing the words to appear there of their own volition. He twirled the quill in his hands unfocusedly, pulling at the strands of the black plume as it spun.

"But Leon went into his room and told us not to bother him," Demyx whined, obviously upset by their sire's reclusive tendencies. "Why doesn't he want to talk to meeee?"

"Because you're annoying." Roxas smiled maliciously, cocking his head to one side tauntingly.

"Am not! Go away, Rox." Demyx pouted angrily, glaring at the smirking blonde with all the spite he could muster. He soon gave up and turned instead to Riku. "Whatcha doin', Riku? Writing something? Who's it to?" The sandy haired vampire grabbed a corner of the paper and tried to turn it so he could read, only to have his hand admonishingly slapped.

"No," Riku warned, wagging a menacing finger. "No."

"But I just wanted to read it," the younger vamp whined. "Please?"

"No."

"Pretty please?"

"NO."

"… Pretty, pretty please, with blood and whipped cream on top?"

"I SAID 'NO'! Now go away."

Demyx looked ready to cry. He sniffed loudly, his feelings clearly hurt by his beloved brother's dismissal.

Riku saw this and sighed, unable to ignore his sniffing brother. "Tell you what, Demy-- why don't you go in my room and play with the voodoo dolls that Aunt Lulu sent us a while back. You'd like that, right?"

Demyx grinned. "Yeah, yeah! Frickin' sweet! This is why you're my favourite, Riku! I promise to try to not break anything!" he shouted as he ran down the hallway and into Riku's room. Riku winced as he heard something shatter, followed by Demyx's cries of 'It's okay, I can fix it!' and 'You didn't really need that anyway, right?' and 'I can buy a new one for cheap on eBay!'

"Way to go, Riku. I expect you'll be sleeping in a disaster area tonight, judging by how quickly he's demolishing your possessions," Roxas laughed, sliding onto the stool next to his younger brother.

"As long as it keeps him busy," Riku said absently, busily writing on his most recent sheet of stationery. He stopped halfway through, reread what he'd written, then shook his head and crumpled the paper into a ball.

"What are you doing?" Roxas asked him, his curiosity half masked with fake nonchalance. His royal blue eyes flickered down to Riku's new sheet of paper, trying to catch the words before the silver haired vampire hid them behind his hand.

"Writing, obviously."

"That much I understood," Roxas gritted out, looking annoyed.

"You wouldn't be concerned," Riku said with a mocking smile. "It's to the Slayer."

Roxas grimaced; he looked away from his brother and shuddered, as if trying to shake the thought of the Slayer from his mind. "Be that as it may," the blonde spat out, looking thoroughly disgusted by Riku's words, "I would still like to know why you are writing to him."

"Cause I'm in _looove_," Riku teased, snickering at the look of absolute horror on Roxas' pale face.

"Don't make me vomit," the blonde hissed, looking faint. "You're going to kill me with all of this 'I'm in love with the Slayer' bullshit one of these days, Riku."

Riku continued to laugh, his eyes turned back down on the paper before him. "Yeah, what a tragedy that'd be." He glanced up at his brother from behind long, dark lashes. "Why does it bother you so much?" Riku asked quietly, tearing his current piece of paper into shreds and then brushing them onto the floor.

"It's unnatural," Roxas said with a shudder. "Against every law of man, nature, and vampire. What's odd is that you're _not_ bothered by it," the older blonde countered, looking mystified. "I could have sworn-- I thought… I thought you were normal, Riku. For the most part, at least. You enjoyed killing, as you should. You even killed Slayers," he smiled. "And up until very recently, you were well on your way to killing this Slayer as well. Then all of a sudden you pull this one-eighty and now you're infatuated with him." Roxas put his elbow on the dark, slick countertop and leaned against it, studying the younger vampire. "Why risk your reputation with our kind? Why risk your life? You know what the Palliata would do if they heard about this. They might not even stop with you. They could come after all four of us. So… why?"

Riku pursed his lips. His eyes flickered to his new sheet of stationery and then back to Roxas. "I had another dream... But it wasn't like the other dreams I've had about Slayers. It brought up some things I'd had in the back of my mind for a while, I guess."

"Hm." Roxas looked skeptical but didn't question him any further. He stared out the floor-to-ceiling window and into the night. "Are you planning to write and deliver that letter to him tonight?"

"Yes."

"Then you should hurry," he advised reluctantly. "Sun's going to be up in a couple of hours."

* * *

Sora grabbed a piece of toast before hurrying out the door for school. He held the slightly burnt slice in his mouth and opened the front door, rubbing his eyes tiredly, as the night divided between hunting and studying hadn't left much spare time for sleep. Sora was about to take off down the steps and hurry to see if he could still catch the bus to school when a folded sheet of paper crammed under a potted plant on the front porch caught his eye.

The brunette carefully pulled the paper out, unfolded it, and proceeded to read and munch on his toast as he walked toward the school, all hope of catching the bus forgotten. Elegant, meticulous, flowing cursive filled the small paper.

_Slayer_

_Meet me tonight just after sunset at the entrance to the graveyard by the old Smitherfield church. I promise that this is not a trap, or a trick, and that I won't hurt you in the slightest. I just want to talk. I will not kiss you again, either. (Unless you want me to, which is an entirely different, but not unwelcome, matter altogether.) While I am still above begging, I will go so far as to ask very, very, very pleadingly that you come. _

_---Riku_

"Ooooh, fancy," Sora mumbled, noting the quality of the paper that the vampire had written on. He folded the note and slid it safely down into his pocket, still mulling over the words in his mind.

Riku seemed sincere. Just as he had during their previous few meetings. He was not overtly threatening, but he was still formidable. Logic and experience told Sora that it was more likely than not a plot, some scheme to lure him in, catch him off guard, and then kill him. The logical part of his brain told him that even if it was a trap, if he went in prepared and on the defensive, a sizeable amount of information could be gained through playing along with the vampire. A smaller, more passionate part of him, still woozy at the letter's mention of kissing, insisted that perhaps Riku was being truthful and really did have feelings for him.

Sora tried to ignore that part, telling himself that his lack of a love life was just putting strange, desperate thoughts into his head. Charm was one of many tools in a vampire's arsenal; they weren't above playing with emotions, even ones like love. But all through lunch, and history class, and pre-calculus, and chemistry his mind wandered back to the silver haired vampire with the too-smooth skin and the cold, solid body and the hard, snow-cold lips and the mesmerizing eyes. _'And the fangs,'_ he forcibly reminded himself. _'The sharp, bloodied fangs.'_

Every time Sora felt his thoughts trailing back to Riku and his perfect face, or his velvet smooth voice, he brought himself back by remembering Riku's bloodied victims, or his death threats, or how cold and cruel his laugh could be. Or how close he'd come to killing Sora so many times.

Sora rode that seesaw all day long, constantly going back and forth through the polarized memories of the vampire. The most recent memories were of a helpful, beautiful, self-proclaimed 'changed' vampire struggling to be good, but the most familiar stories were of a sadistic killer who loved to play with people like they were paper dolls.

"Sora, are you alright?" Cloud asked concernedly as he stopped the boy leaving his class that afternoon. "You looked sick on and off throughout class. I half-considered sending you to the bathroom during my lecture. What's wrong? Maybe you should see the nurse?"

"No, I'm fine," the brunette said with a forced smile. He made his voice light and joking. "Probably shouldn't have trusted the cafeteria's casserole, right?"

The teacher gave Sora a searching look. He opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it abruptly. "Right," Cloud agreed with a smile, the unsure, worried look never leaving his bright eyes for a moment. "You should probably get to your next class then, huh? I'll write you a pass."

* * *

Sora shrugged into a heavy jacket before grabbing a stake and a number of knives and then leaving his house. He shivered against the cold evening air. The brunette flipped the faux-furred hood up over his head and shoved his hands and weaponry deep into the coat's pockets. He wasn't about to be taken by surprise.

He walked the path to the old church and cemetery that Riku had specified, feeling like a fool the entire way. It would only be too easy for Riku to stage this, to call in his vampire friends and do a sneak attack-- but that wasn't his style. He was a stalker. He liked to stalk things. _Especially_ Sora. He knew just how much it unnerved the young brunette. It wouldn't make sense for Riku to declare some special meeting place if that's all he had in mind: he would simply have stealthily tailed him for some time before launching into an attack whenever he felt ready. That plan of action would give him a much greater advantage.

The boy continued to let his thoughts jumble together as he tried to sort out the vampire's intentions. He let his feet guide him, his body moving on auto-pilot while his mind focused on other things entirely.

His mind was so preoccupied that he didn't even realize when he'd stopped.

"Hey, there. Plan on staring into space much longer?"

Sora drew back in startled fright, reflexively drawing out the stake and a dagger as he did so.

"Relax! Calm down, Slayer. It's just me," the voice said soothingly. Riku leaned out from the shadows of the cemetery gate, looking both amused and nervous. His clothing betrayed his vampire nature-- while Sora had bundled up in layers of shirts and an overcoat before setting foot outside that night, Riku had only seen it necessary to wear one crisp white shirt with a navy jacket thrown over it. Sora had never felt so envious of the vampires' imperviousness to cold before.

"I-it's j-j-_just_ you," he chattered sarcastically, rolling his eyes as he tucked his hands back into the comforting warmth of his pockets. "It's j-just a murderous v-v-vampire, no need to fear th-that, right?"

"None at all," Riku said with a tight-lipped smile. "We need to get a move on, though, if we're going to make it in time."

"In t-time for what?" the boy asked suspiciously, drawing himself away from the vampire slightly.

"Nothing malicious, I promise." Bright aqua eyes watched Sora carefully, looking hopeful. "I just-- I don't think you'll want to miss this."

Sora was silent, appraising the man opposite of him with narrowed eyes. "Alright, let's go."

Riku turned with a smile and led the boy through the woods for nearly a mile before proceeding up a steep incline along the side of a small mountain.

"Are you fucking _kidding_ me?" Sora wailed as he looked vertically, his mouth gaping. "S-s-surely we're n-not climbing _that_," he said spitefully, pointing at the mountain in question.

"I can carry you if you'd rather," Riku suggested helpfully, looking a bit excited by the idea. He grinned widely, his razor-like canines glinting in the growing moonlight.

"Uh, no. Thanks, but n-no thanks." Sora sighed and followed the disappointed vampire up the incline, careful to take Riku's trail exactly. The Slayer's eyes, while much better suited for night than the average human, were still no match for the vampire's. Sora had to trust that Riku was choosing the safest, sturdiest path along the rocky, crumbling side of the mountain.

After a few minutes more minutes of difficult climbing, Riku disappeared from sight. Sora hurried to scale the nearly vertical face of the mountain, finding the ledge that the vampire had pulled himself over and heaving his body onto it. The brunette then rolled onto his back, his breathing labored and loud.

"Wow. You are really out of shape," Riku commented snidely.

Sora gasped. "Shut… up… dumb… face…"

"What was that?"

"You heard… me… you asshole." Sora dragged himself closer to the vampire, forgetting to be cautious long enough to appreciate the view. They sat on a broad, wooded ledge on the side of the low mountain, the moon behind them and a vast, tree-covered plain below them. The grass was short and thick, almost like a carpet. A few fluffy, grey clouds still hovered in the sky, promising rain.

"On the bright side, you worked up quite a sweat," the vampire said brightly, looking a little too interested as he said it. He shook his head, reminding himself that a sweating Slayer was _not_ what he was here for, no matter how tantalizing that sounded. "Not cold anymore, right?"

"I wasn't while we were climbing," Sora grumbled. "But now I'm wet, and the wind is starting to blow, and I'm just going to freeze."

Riku tapped the side of his silvery head with one slender finger. "Which is why I had the foresight to bring this," he said with a grin, pulling out a bag that Sora hadn't even realized he'd been carrying. Riku opened it and pulled out a small, bundled blanket and passed it to the boy beside him. "It's a very comfortable blanket, one of Roxas' favourites. I'm sure he'll appreciate that it's being put to good use." The vampire laughed to himself a little, obviously looking forward to telling his older brother where his beloved blanket disappeared to.

"Thanks," Sora said with a small smile. _'That was unexpected…he really isn't all that bad once-- gah! He did it again! I keep letting him get to me! He's so good at making me trust him…"_

"We're in time," the silver haired man said happily, leaning back against a rock that was sticking up out of the ground and visibly relaxing.

"In time for what?"

"Just watch," Riku smiled, pointing casually out into the distance.

Sora scanned the dark, cloud-dotted horizon, his face tense with concentration. After a few minutes he started to get a headache and settled for simply gazing out into the star-specked darkness. He yawned, feeling quite tired from their climb. The fact that he'd only gotten about six hours of sleep over the last three days didn't help much either.

"Oh!" came Riku's surprised voice from Sora's right, starling him. "There it is, you see? Look, Slayer, look!"

A pale, silvery white bow arced over the forest some distance away, looking impossibly delicate and ephemeral. It cut through the night sky, and though it looked dim in comparison to the stars that lay around it, it was still spectacular.

"What is that?" Sora said breathlessly.

"A lunar rainbow. A moonbow. It's white to you, isn't it? I read that somewhere. Humans can't usually see the color because of their lower sensitivity to light at night," the vampire explained in a rush, his eyes still focused on the white arc. "I'd hoped you would be able to see the color, since you have such inhuman eyes, you know, but I guess the moon just isn't bright enough tonight. It's too bad…"

"Wait," Sora interrupted, looking over at Riku curiously. "What colors are you seeing?"

"All of them," Riku said quickly, his eyes smiling. "The normal rainbow colors. It's kind of like having a bit of the sun back for me," he added, looking down at his lap. "I may not be able to see a real rainbow, what with the killer sun and all, but I can get pretty damn close with these. The only problem is how quickly they disappear." Sure enough, by the time they looked back the moonbow was gone. Riku glanced over at Sora and smiled.

The brunette couldn't help but smile back; a happy Riku was irresistible and contagious, and Sora suddenly felt just as wired and talkative as the vampire. They spoke quietly for over an hour, teasing one another and discussing whatever random thoughts entered their minds.

"Sadly," Sora laughed as he lay on his back and stared up at the stars, snuggling under the blanket, "this is probably the most normal, human conversation I've had in a long, long time."

"Why is it sad?"

Sora turned onto his side, giving Riku an obvious look of disbelief. "My most normal conversation happens to be with a two hundred year old vampire that was previously interested only in killing me. That's a _little_ out of the norm for most humans. And you're not the kind of person I'd expect to have pleasant conversation with." He let out a chuckle and smiled.

Riku shrugged. "I'm full of surprises."

"You sure are…" Sora agreed, setting back down on the grass, squirming as it tickled his ears and neck. He pulled the soft blanket tighter around him as the breeze grew stronger. "Speaking of surprises, how did you know about this? The rainbow, I mean. It's like you knew when it was going to happen."

"And where we'd have to be to see it," the vampire added with a glance around them. "Lunar rainbows are very rare because of the number of conditions that have to be met for one to appear. So, naturally, getting the chance to see one is special, like a gift. I wanted to give you that, Slayer," he finished with a nervous smile. Sora could tell that the vampire had eaten recently because of the rosy pink that stained those ivory white cheeks.

"But how? You just said it yourself: pinpointing when and where one of these will occur is practically impossible."

"Well… sometimes… I have dreams."

Sora stayed silent, thinking that Riku was planning to continue. "Ok," he said finally, losing patience. "You have dreams. Great. Good for you."

Riku smiled and bit his lower lip. He turned his head to the side, looking at Sora and shaking his head. "You don't get it, do you? Vampires don't dream."

"You don't?" The Slayer was genuinely shocked. He'd never thought much about what a vampire's life was like, but he'd always assumed that they retained those kinds of human experiences.

"No. We don't. We're not supposed to, at least. It's part of our punishment for becoming vampires-- or at least that's what the crazy Old Ones say."

"But you can dream?"

"Yes. It doesn't happen very often, but... it's… _useful_ when it does."

"Oh. My. God." Sora rolled over multiple times, closing the gap between himself and Riku in seconds, stopping just inches from the vampire. He lay on his stomach, propped up on his elbows so that he could better see the pale one's face. Grass and dead leaves covered his back and stuck haphazardly out of his cinnamon hair. "_Riku_," he whispered in awe. "Can you see the future?"

Riku laughed at the boy's expression of wonder and amazement. "Yes and no. It's usually more of a 'this-will-happen-but-only-if-you-do-_this_' type thing. Very rarely do I ever dream about things that will happen regardless of my actions… but this was one of those rare times."

"Wow." Sora rolled back over onto his back, unable to hide how impressed he was. He was so close to Riku that his arm was brushing the vampire's, but he didn't feel the need to move.

"So… I guess it's about time that we get down to other business," Riku said suddenly, his face losing all of its playfulness and cheer; his eyes grew hard and serious. "You've been a Slayer for about half a year, correct?"

"Yeah, about six months. How did you know that?"

The vampire smiled shrewdly and shook his head, brushing off the question.

"The way you fight… You fight as though you were at least ten or eleven months along. Must be some innate ability in you," Riku said with a pleasant smile. "But all the same, you lack fundamental experience and training. In other cultures, ones in which the people openly acknowledge and accept the existence of vampires and demons, those with Slayer abilities are instantly recognized and taken into training. They are prepared mentally and physically for the fight. They are comprehensively taught everything about their main adversary: the history of the vampire, our weaknesses and strengths, our legends and our beliefs, our social hierarchy and our sense of ethics-- that's right, we have ethics. Those Slayers are taught using the ancient knowledge that human ancestors have passed down for ages. They truly know their enemies. But you have none of that."

"Had you been born in such a place, your level of fighting ability would be at least twice what it is now," he continued, nodding matter-of-factly when he saw Sora's crestfallen and unbelieving face. "And that is what you direly need. Learning on your own may be sufficient for fighting the weak, common vampires you have around here, but by no means will it prove useful against a serious opponent."

"I can't help that," Sora pouted. "It wasn't like I got much help with figuring all of this crap out."

"Didn't the Watchers help? I thought that was their sole purpose in life-- to help the Slayer."

"No. They dropped off a book about Slayers and what we do, and that was about it. It was mostly stuff explaining some of my abilities, the basics of vampire slaying, how I got my Slayer powers, and basically just assured me that I wasn't going insane. It gave me more questions than answers. But who do you go to when you have questions about vampires? Or vampire slayers?"

"Hmph. They're getting lazy. Or distracted from all their efforts to aid hunters and solve all the demon problems themselves. It must've been hard for you," Riku said with a shrug, sidling closer to the brunette.

"Absolutely. I woke up one morning in April and I felt so… different. It's like my whole body changed, but I was still me. It was like-- have you ever seen Spiderman?"

"Uh… no."

Sora gave him a look, a look that said 'you-need-to-crawl-out-from-under-that-rock-and-watch-a-goddamn-movie-every-once-in-a-while'. It was a very wordy look. "Well, it was like that. I could run faster, react quicker, jump higher… my sight was amazing, and my sense of smell! I could tell people apart by just by scent. I could hear things I'd never heard before. And I felt so _strong_. But I was so scared. And I didn't have anyone to tell me what was happening to me. And then the vampires started attacking me." Sora crossed his arms with a loud, disapproving 'hmph'. Riku's lip twitched as the Slayer's shoulder pressed lightly against his own.

"At first they just followed me, and I thought they were stalkers, or that they were just harassing me because I'm-- because people at school don't like me. But then one came at me as I was taking a walk one night. I didn't even realize he was a vampire, so it's lucky that I killed him. We wrestled on the side of the road, and I grabbed a piece of a broken two-by-four lying in a ditch, and I just stabbed him over and over, but he kept getting up. And then 'poof'," the boy whispered as he made little poofing-actions with his hands, "he was dust. The next day I found a four hundred page book on my doorstep called 'A Slayer's Guide to Slaying' and a note from the Watchers."

"What did it say, exactly? The note?" Riku asked curiously.

"Oh, general stuff. It explained that I inherited the Slayer powers at the moment when the previous Slayer was killed, and how I'd endlessly be hunted by dark beings until my inevitable premature death. Did you know that the average Slayer lives to be twenty?" Sora asked him with a fake bright smile. "So I have roughly four more years of fear, fighting, and loneliness to endure before one of your kind finally kills me. But if I'm as poorly trained and ill prepared as you say, then I guess I don't even have that long."

Riku stopped smiling. "A bit pessimistic, don't you think?"

"Well, it's like you said-- you can't really blame me for looking on the dark side as I'm always on the verge of death."

The vampire licked his lips. "I probably could have phrased that better, in retrospect," he sighed.

"But it's the truth. I'm going to be facing death every night of my life until I die, and--"

"It doesn't have to be the truth," Riku interrupted, looking sharply at the brunette. "You will die eventually, yes, that's inevitable. But you could live much longer, if you were strong enough. Or if you were surrounded by others that were strong enough. You don't have to bear that burden alone. I don't want to come off as being arrogant--"

"You already do," Sora teased.

"--but I'm an excellent fighter, and I could easily protect you," Riku finished, ignoring the brunette's interjection. He stared out in the distance for a moment, running his tongue over his teeth as he thought. Glowing aquamarine eyes turned slowly back to Sora, looking apprehensive. "And… you could always beat death, you know. I could turn you--"

"No," Sora said bluntly, shifting away from the silver haired vampire. "Out of the question. I'm honestly surprised that you would even suggest that, Riku," Sora said quietly, his voice bitter.

"Sorry," Riku said quickly, not sounding apologetic at all. "Just putting it out there--"

"Well, I don't _want_ it out there." Sora readied himself to stand, no longer feeling up to staying in Riku's company.

"Wait, wait," Riku said worriedly, gently wrapping his hand around Sora's arm. "Look, I'm sorry I mentioned it. I didn't want to upset you, and I still need to talk to you."

He gave the boy a hopeful look, and Sora found it practically impossible to say no. "Alright, what else do you want?"

Riku grinned and pulled out what looked like a cloth-wrapped box. As he peeled away the dark green material wrapped around it, Sora saw that Riku in fact held three small, very thick books. "Every powerful vampire has one of these. Every previous Slayer had one too, if they lasted long enough to make one. It's kind of a guide to everyone worth knowing in the world," he smiled and shrugged, handing a worn, leather bound book to the boy. "A sort of 'who's who' for dark beings. It's called a bingo book, and it's also a good way to keep track of any and all enemies or potential allies you come across."

"A bingo book, huh?" Sora commented as he began flipping through the one Riku had handed to him.

"That one is mine," Riku nodded, pointing to the handbook in Sora's hands. "Leon started it for me, and I've kept it up over the last two hundred years."

Sora studied the writing in the book more closely after hearing this. The script was the same as had been left on his note: perfect, flowing cursive, obviously mastered at a time when the skill of good handwriting received much more emphasis. Each page was devoted to a different vampire or a particular breed of demon. Some pages were accompanied by detailed drawings, complete with notes on anatomical structure, distinguishing features, and abnormalities. As he explored more of Riku's bingo book, Sora began to understand how it was laid out. Vampires took up the first section of the book, demons filled the largest section in the middle, and various human threats were described at the back. Sora turned toward the front of the book and found where the handwriting changed. A rougher, sketchier script covered the first twenty or so pages, detailing vampires with names like Roxas and Lulu, then Xigbar, Xemnas, Saix, Larxene-- members of the ancient group of vampires called the Palliata, he remembered-- and even Riku and Leon themselves.

'_This Leon guy is nothing if not comprehensive,'_ Sora thought idly as he studied Leon's page, noting the list of facts that the vampire had listed about himself.

Sora turned through more pages, working his way to the back of the bingo book. Several of the demons or vampires had been crossed out, while other pages seemed to have been ripped out entirely. He soon reached the section of the book containing humans; many were completely normal humans who had still managed to slay vampires, while a few were even listed as having enough magical ability to pose a threat.

Sora breathed deeply when he found the pages covering the Slayers. It started with a Slayer named Damien Hrynkyw, who had been killed in 1798. He was followed by Edda Sophia Proietti, killed in 1804. Pages and pages followed, each one featuring a Slayer, each one slashed through with a thick black mark. Sora grew more bitter and frustrated as he went on, each crossed out Slayer feeling like the tightening of a vise around his heart. He skipped to the end and found himself. 'Sora Kirsch' was written at the top in that same elegant script, and his picture was drawn below that, accompanied by a detailed description of his appearance, his personal habits, his home address, and his fighting style, along with numerous stats about his slaying.

"It's a good likeness," Sora said quietly, tapping the drawing with his index finger. "You're a really good artist."

"Thanks."

Sora shut the book with a snap and handed it back, not wanting to read whatever notes Riku had once taken in an attempt to better his chances of killing the Slayer. He didn't want to think about it. "So what exactly was the point of that?" he asked in mild annoyance, rubbing at the bridge of his nose.

"You need one," the vampire replied, putting another thick book into Sora's hands.

The cinnamon haired boy looked down at it; the book seemed newer than Riku's, but he could still tell that it was old. It was bound in black leather and etched with a swirling silver pattern. Sora opened it curiously, his previous disgruntled anger and annoyance completely forgotten. The pages were all blank, with the exception of a few at the front.

"I thought I'd simultaneously get your bingo book started and let you in on a bit of my family's history."

Sora was speechless. He turned the thick, leather-bound book over in his hands, admiring it. "You're really giving this to me?"

"Of course. Believe me, Slayer, you really do need it. I'm not kidding," Riku's mouth turned down in a slight grimace as he said it, as if amazed that the boy had lasted so long without one. "I also went ahead and included pages on some of the more common demon types and their weaknesses. It should help out in the field." He smiled and leaned teasingly in toward the brunette. "I've seen you hunt demons, Slayer. You pretty much just stab at it and hope you hit something vital."

"You mean there's a better way to go about killing stuff?" Sora asked jokingly.

"Of course. Knowing where and how to strike really helps. For instance, Solanum demons can only be killed with fire. A Glutton demon can be killed with mint leaves. A Venetian demon's weak spot is the crook of its arm…" the vampire trailed off, looking at Sora thoughtfully. "But we can talk about those things later. I wanted to ask you something else."

Sora shifted out of his crouched position and sat against the gnarled base of a thick, wide oak tree. "Go on. Ask away."

"You've never been trained in fighting." It was a statement. Riku waited for Sora to nod his head in acknowledgement before continuing. "You tried training with your friend, the dumb redhead," he wrinkled his nose as he said it, making Sora chuckle. "But it didn't work. It couldn't work, because you're too strong. It's foolish to expect another human to equal you, to pose a challenge."

"Doesn't leave me with a whole lot of options, does it?" Sora watched the vampire, who avoided looking him in the eye.

"It leaves you with me," Riku said tentatively, casting covert looks toward the Slayer. "I could-- well, you know perfectly well how capable I am of challenging you. We're almost equals, Slayer, in strength and in speed. The only edge I have over you is in experience and technique."

"And… you can see the future. Not exactly a level playing field," Sora pouted.

"True enough. But the battle between light and darkness isn't some soccer game where everyone plays by the rules," he reminded the brunette with a frown. "There will be many instances where you are either outnumbered, or wounded, or faced with a much stronger adversary, and you will still have to fight them. It's your duty. You don't really have a choice in your course of action if you wish to survive."

Sora sighed at that, already sick and tired of hearing it. "I know. So what you're suggesting is… that we fight together--"

"For practice," Riku interjected, nodding slowly.

"-- for practice," the brunette repeated, looking skeptical, "and you teach me about vampires and stuff, and the 'proper' way to fight."

"Yes."

"Alright." Sora shrugged. "I'm probably already one of the most unorthodox Slayers that's ever been, so why not go ahead and let a vampire teach me to slay?"

"Why not?" Riku agreed with a smile. "You made the right choice, Slayer. I give my word that I won't kill you--"

"Or Axel."

"Who?" Riku asked in confusion, his eyebrows knitted together.

"Axel. My _friend_," Sora said obtusely. "The 'dumb redhead'," he clarified.

Riku's expression changed instantly. "Oh, right. _Him_. I won't hurt him either, I guess."

"Excellent. Sounds like a deal." Sora shivered and stuck his hands into his pockets, forgetting entirely about the weapons he'd hidden there. "Oh, shi-- ouch, ouch, ouch," he muttered angrily, pulling his right hand back out and shaking it furiously. A knife had left an inch long slice on his ring finger and blood was rapidly seeping from the wound. Sora suddenly remembered the company he was in and froze; he shoved the digit into his mouth without delay and looked worriedly toward the vampire sitting less than three feet away.

Riku's eyes watched him with an eerie focus, as if he could not see the Slayer even though he was staring straight at him. With his mouth slightly parted, the vampire inhaled deeply through his nose; he seemed overcome by the scent in the air, and his body started to shake with ragged breaths.

Sora pulled the finger out of his mouth and quickly wrapped it in the fabric of the blanket. "Riku?" His voice was on the edge of panic, and he hesitantly reached for the stake to defend himself.

"Nothing," the vampire said impetuously, his voice deep and rough. "I mean-- It's okay, don't worry." He continued to pant and spasm, but the uncanny look in his eyes had been replaced with one of calm clarity. "I just-- I got overwhelmed for a moment. I'm okay now."

"Maybe this whole training thing isn't such a good idea--"

"No, no, it _is_ a good one," Riku objected, his voice still low and unpolished. "I wouldn't hurt you, see? Even when it's so tempting that it makes me ache, I still wouldn't." His words were hurried and desperate; he was struggling to reassure the Slayer.

"Okay, okay," the boy relented. "We'll try it. But we're going to start off slow. I don't want you to have an internal battle every time we spar and I get a little nick."

"Understandable. Are you alright?" he asked tentatively, gesturing to the boy's hand. He fidgeted as though he wanted to move closer, but seemed to think better of it.

"I'm fine. It's you that I'm worried about." He smiled nervously and shook his head. "Do you mind, uh, walking away for a little bit while I bandage it?" Sora winced a little as he spoke, hoping he wasn't offending the vampire.

Riku simply nodded went to the opposite side of the ledge, his back facing the Slayer. He looked down over the edge. _'A long way to fall,'_ he thought absently, his upper body leaning out into the empty space. The wind blew up and buffeted the mountainside, pushing him back and away from the edge. He could hear Sora gasp as the burst of cold air stung him. "Are you done? I think it's time we leave."

"I a-agree," the boy said with a sharp nod, picking up his new bingo book. He tied the blanket around him and approached the edge where they'd climbed up. Looking down, Sora could only see darkness. "Um, Riku… this is going to be awkward, but could I ask a favor?"

"Ask away," Riku smiled as he picked up his things from the ground.

"Could you… carry me? I don't want to slip and break my ankle… or anything else, for that matter."

The vampire smiled mischievously. "I would _love_ to carry you, Slayer." He was next to the brunette in a flash, hooking one arm behind the boy's knees and wrapping the other around his shoulders. He effortlessly lifted the boy into his arms, grinning like a fox. "Bridal style, what do you say?"

"I say you're enjoying this far too much."

Sora gasped as the vampire jumped straight off the ledge, not even bothering to look down. The Slayer waited for the impact, for the hard crunch of earth, for the pain, but it never came.

"Relax, would you? I know what I'm doing."

Sora nestled close to Riku's chest as they soundlessly bounded down the mountainside and through the forest. It felt like he was being carried in the arms of a statue, one made of unbreakable stone-- maybe the statue of an angel, if Riku's face was anything to go by. It wasn't long before the vampire slowed his pace, and soon after that he came to a stop and gently put Sora back on his feet.

"I forgot to give you this earlier." The vampire gave him a tight lipped smile and reached back into his bag. He pulled out a green-bound bingo book, the last of the three he'd brought, and passed it to the brunette. "I want you to have it. It belonged to the last Slayer."

Sora stacked the book on top of his own and then hugged them close to his chest. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." Riku's eyes squinted as he smiled. He lazily kicked at the ground beside him. "I'd better be off. Leon'll be getting worried soon…"

"Yeah… I have to go home and study for a chemistry quiz tomorrow."

"Right. Well, good luck with that."

There was an uncomfortable silence that stretched on as neither of them wanted to be the one to initiate the goodbyes. Sora finally gave him an awkward wave and then left, still bundled up in the blanket Riku had given him.

The vampire watched the Slayer until he turned the corner and disappeared from sight. He sighed, debating whether or not to press his luck and follow the boy home.

'_No, it wouldn't do any good to tail him like that. He hates that. I'd only freak him out more.'_

In the end he settled for just paying Sora's house a visit, once he was sure the boy had had enough time to settle in. He peered in through the windows to check that he'd made it there safely, then perched on the windowsill, not unlike a bird of prey might, and watched the sleeping boy toss and turn through the rest of the night.

* * *

**Watching your crush sleep through bedroom window is creepy… but kind of touching, right? Yeah, and I stole the bingo book thing from Naruto, I _think_. I'm not exactly well versed in Naruto.**

**And I'm going to plug a story here, and I'll do it on Ars Musica when I update it, too: The Forest's Creatures by lackofname. Find it. Read it. Love it. **


	6. Aberration

**Thanks to combo-bass for being a superfast, supergood beta, and to Koneko Hoshi and Moon Faery for their reviews. **

**It's been a long time. Enjoy over 20 pages of new chapter!**

"_There are cemeteries that are lonely,_

_graves full of bones that do not make a sound…_

_like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves,_

_as though we were drowning inside out hearts,_

_as though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul."_

_--Pablo Neruda, Nothing But Death_

* * *

Sora crawled into bed, the nearly blank bingo book that Riku had given him clutched tightly in his hand. He yawned ferociously, his body shaking a little from the force of it. He did have a quiz to study for, he hadn't lied about that, and he really did need to get some sleep… but both would have to wait. How could Sora sleep or study when there was a book loaded with secrets and intimate details of a vampire's life in his very hands?

He flipped it open to the first page, titled 'The Bingo Book of Sora Kirsch' and then to the next page, which simply said 'Riku's family'.

It started with Leon, which made sense, Sora reasoned, since Leon had been the start of Riku's life after death. Riku had sketched the vampire's face in the corner of the page; dark hair fell around his face and to his shoulders, a scar crossed the bridge of his nose, right between his eyes, and his countenance looked stern and harsh. Sora guessed that Leon wasn't a happy person.

He read aloud, hoping that the spoken words would help him stay awake.

"Leon Leonhart, also known as Squall Leonhart and Sturm Leonhardt. Of Germanic descent. Born in 1577, turned in 1604. Sired by Sephiroth. He is quiet, reclusive, and overly fond of alcoholic drinks. Leon successfully sired six vampires, three of which are still in existence: Roxas, Riku, and Demyx.

He obtained a distinguishing scar after the battle with Palliata member Saix. There is speculation that Leon was sought for punishment by the Palliata due to his romantic involvement with a vampire hunter by the name of Seifer Almasy, though no further details are known publically. In vampire society, Leon has the negative reputation of being a 'mosquito', or a vampire who creates fledglings often, usually out of loneliness or boredom. He is powerful and skilled with the sword, but rarely fights. Very close to and protective of his vampiric children."

The next page was devoted to a vampire Sora was sure he'd never even heard of. "Lulu Brighton, also known as Louise Brighton. Vampiric sister to Leon. Born in England in 1640, turned in 1668. Very skilled in magic. Sired Paine Anderson in 1724." Riku had drawn a woman with heavy, lidded eyes and full lips below the words. Dark, wavy hair covered the left half of her face, and the rest of her hair was pinned ornately in the back.

On the next page was Roxas. Riku had drawn two pictures of this young-looking vampire; in one, he looked deadly and haughty. Sora didn't doubt that this short-haired, delicate looking vampire was an excellent killer. But the next picture showed Roxas looking lost and stubborn, a little too similar to Sora's expression for his liking.

"Roxas Laroque, born in France in 1773, turned at the age of seventeen in 1790. Came from French nobility, but was forced to flee into the countryside after the family manor was burned during the Revolution and his family killed or forced to go into hiding. Shortly after, he was found and turned by Leon Leonhart, who harbored romantic feelings for him. Roxas did not hold the same feelings, and fled just days after becoming a vampire. He spent three months searching the country for his friend, the former stable boy of his manor, Hayner Fournier. Upon finding him, Roxas attempted to turn his friend, but lost control and killed him in the process.

He returned to Leon shortly thereafter. Their relationship was volatile, and Roxas often left for months, or even years, on end. Feelings between the two are still tense. Roxas is strong and ruthless, and has successfully killed one slayer: Manikarnika Rao."

Sora flipped to the next page, expecting to see Riku, but found yet another vampire that he was unfamiliar with. Demyx Mitchell, who looked like he'd been brought straight out of the eighties. He was drawn with a huge grin and bright looking eyes; and he had a mohawk. A real, honest-to-God mohawk. A vampire… with a mohawk. Sora tried to wrap his mind around that one.

"Demyx Mitchell, born in 1946, turned in 1964 at the age of eighteen. After running away from home at the age of seventeen, he was accidentally made into a vampire by a drunken Leon after a one-night stand in San Francisco. Leon acknowledged his siring of Demyx and took him in. Demyx is a laid-back and open-minded individual, and unique among vampires for his distaste for both human blood and violence. He is prone to forming friendships and romantic relationships with humans, and is currently involved with a human named Zexion."

Sora smiled, happily surprised to find that at least one gentle and good-natured vampire existed, and moved on to the next page. This time, he knew who it was going to be about.

Riku had not drawn a picture, but had instead left a small note for Sora. "This is my story. I don't know enough about Leon or Roxas or Demyx to tell their stories completely, but I can tell you mine."

"Riku Väisälä, born in Finland in 1786 and turned in 1806 at the age of twenty. I left my small hometown at fourteen to become a sailor and explore the world, but rarely got the chance to venture out of the waters around Europe. We spent most of the time sailing in the Arctic. I grew used to the cold and the ice, came to expect them, which is probably why the vampires I unwittingly came across never struck me as being unnatural.

While heading to Iceland, I met Squall Leonhart, one of the richer passengers aboard the ship, _Valfreyja_. I quickly became infatuated with him-- he was mysterious and knowledgeable and had seen more of the world than I could ever dream of-- and I visited him nightly in his cabin. I never thought it strange that he did not come above deck in the daylight. At night, we would sometimes leave his room and venture out into the cold, leaning over the railing and watching the sea and the stars. And he would tell me stories of far off places and the people he had met and the strange things he had seen. I wanted to see those things as well, but I knew I would never have the chance. The world was a big place, and I could never know it all.

On the fourth night, there was a violent storm. I remember seeing the captain washed overboard when one of the waves tipped the _Valfreyja_ nearly on her side. The rain alone was enough to leave me shaking; the wind was ferocious, and it made the icy rain sting like needles when it hit. The boards on one side of the hull cracked, and the ship began to slowly sink. I went down to Squall's cabin to tell him that we were doomed. I remember stumbling into his room, dripping all over everything, screaming and crying.

He pulled me onto the bed and told me that there was a way to survive the cold, survive everything. He offered me immortality and I took it, because I was afraid to die. I had seen drowned corpses before. I had seen the bodies of men that froze to death in the night. I did not want that to happen to me.

It took just over an hour to change, but it felt like it lasted all night. (I know now how rushed that Turning was, how dangerous and risky.) The pain was overwhelming. I wished for death during that time, if only to make the burning of my blood and the clutching of my heart cease. If I'd had the strength, or at least a pistol, I would have killed myself. I could feel my body die all around me, and then start anew. I felt my senses heighten and my body change and my humanity slip into the back of my mind. Squall put a throat to my lips, and I tore into it without thought. He was my bunkmate, a good friend of mine, but I didn't even realize that until after I had killed him. I had no remorse for it, either. Animal-like instincts had set in, and I knew that taking his life would extend my own, so I did it gladly.

Now the freezing wind and water were mild to me. I could see the desperation and hopelessness of the people around me, but I could no longer relate. It was like being erased and replaced with an impassive bystander. I could watch the struggle of my comrades so easily and emptily that it was as if we were separated by a glass window and I was simply watching, not even there. I could not freeze, nor could I drown. I would not sink to the depths of the sea, not with this new strength that I possessed. The elements posed no threat, at least not yet. Squall took my hand and leapt overboard. I left my ship and my crew and my friends to drown in that sea.

Squall swam through the choppy waves with little effort; I was still weak and new to this, and frightened of being washed away from him, so I held onto his back as he navigated the sea. We made it to Iceland with at least two hours to spare until sunrise. In that time, he found a small cottage further inland and brought me to it. We ate the family that owned the small house, and then continued to live in that home for some time."

Sora was surprised to see so much writing-- it even continued on to the next page. He was also surprised at how personal it was. The previous entries were written mostly as facts, with precious few details. This story, on the other hand, was a thorough account of Riku's transformation. Sora read on.

"I quickly forgot about my life before being turned. I reveled in being a vampire. I enjoyed having the power to take lives. I loved being held accountable to no one, except for my sire, and the rules of the Palliata, which were not very limiting to my actions and, thus, did not bother me immediately. I passed the time by playing with the locals, or by traveling the coast and visiting the docks at night. I would snatch sailors from their beds, have them regale me with their most terrific stories from abroad, and then torture them for hours on end. Squall did nothing to stop me. While he held no malice for humans, no longer took cruel delight in their suffering, as I did, he did not particularly care for them either. He let me do as I please, for the most part. He would not let me face the vampire hunters. That was it.

A few years into our relatively quiet life in Iceland, we received a visitor-- another vampire, slightly older than myself, named Roxas. We fought instantly. It was only then that I learned that I had been Squall's second attempt at love-- not even his second, for there were others even before us, but that didn't matter. I saw Roxas as immediate competition. Roxas had spurned any affection that our sire offered, and he frequently left Squall without warning. I despised Roxas, more out of insecurity than anything else. I was scared that his arrival meant my departure, and I knew no life other than Squall. But Roxas was not interested in him, not in the least. That bothered me also, that he dared treat our sire in such a way-- his resentment and mockery was always plain, though Leon never did anything about it. He returned occasionally simply because he had nowhere else to go at the time, and he never stayed more than a few weeks. I still had my sire all to myself, and that was what I wanted, at the time.

But I also wanted adventure, and that was what first drove me from home. I left Squall for the first time sometime before my eightieth vampiric birthday, around 1880. I wandered the world briefly, learning and growing stronger from my encounters with foreign demons and vampires. I spent seven years honing my skills and rapidly developing my strength, for it was while traveling that I first learned of the Slayer.

Leon had never told me, and I stayed away from home longer just to spite him for it. The Slayer is supposed to be the ultimate test of strength for a vampire. I wanted to try my strength against one. As soon as I felt prepared, I sought out the current Slayer, a young man in Latvia, Mihails Ozolini. It took seventy years to lose the scar that he gave me in our fight. He used a szabla, a light sword with a long, curved blade. It cut so deeply across my back that I thought I would split in two. I managed to defeat him mostly out of luck-- he was an experienced Slayer, and he was strong, but he'd been faced with a siege of demons and was exhausted and weak. I also knew that a childhood injury had damaged his left arm, made it easier to ache and tire under stress, and I exploited that weakness.

I killed him with his own sword. I drank half of his blood and covered myself in the rest as proof to other vampires that I had slain him. I was instantly feared and respected by the other vampires I encountered, and I became something of a celebrity. Fighting Slayers turned into an addiction for me. I killed two more soon after, one in Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution and another in Germany after World War II.

As with my first Slayer, both of these were renowned for skill and power, but I still had the upper hand. Each had a weakness, either physical or mental, that when properly used made victory over them simple.

I am one of few vampires that can dream.

I dreamt of the three Slayers I killed before fighting them, and in each dream I saw them die-- saw how I killed them. I saw their weaknesses, and I saw myself victorious. At the time, I reasoned that if there was a God after all, he must have wanted me to kill those Slayers. Otherwise, why would I be sent visions like that? Dreams where I learn truths about people I have never seen before, or where I witness myself doing things that should not be possible, or things that I never even imagined on my own."

Sora was surprised to find that the passage ended there. The next page was blank, and the page after that began listing the names of other noteworthy vampires and some extraordinarily powerful warlocks and demons.

The boy felt along the spine between the page where Riku's story stopped and the blank one opposite it; the uneven, jagged edge of paper he found there told him that another page after this had been ripped out. He clicked his tongue and put the book to rest on the dresser beside his bed before pulling the covers up to his shoulders and curling up for sleep. Now probably wasn't the best time to contemplate the vampire's reasons: there was too much, far too much, for his tired mind to process right now. The last thing he wanted to be imagining before he drifted into sleep was how Riku had covered himself in Slayer's blood, or how he'd turned on his human comrades after becoming a vampire. People he knew, people who trusted him.

Still, as he shut his eyes against the faint moonlight coming in through the window, Sora couldn't help but picture it.

* * *

"My point is, even if Lestat _was_ real, there is no way he could beat Dracula. You're talking craziness, Ax."

"Craziness? Craziness would be saying that Lestat could beat Dumbledore. That's just ignorance and insanity. But Dracula? Come on. I don't get what's so great about him."

Axel tossed a tattered cleaning rag at Sora, who folded his arms as he watched the cloth hit the floor a few feet to his left. He leaned back in the high-backed wooden chair, propping it up on two feet, and tilted his head to the side.

"It's my not-so-subtle way of saying, 'Get off your Slayer ass and help me clean, bitch'."

Sora snorted. "Well, _that's_ not going to happen."

The bartender picked up the ignored rag and tossed it onto a table. He glared at the Slayer as he swept the creaky wooden floors. Only the glow from the lights in Axel's office toward the back of the bar provided light to see by; the redhead was disgusted by how filthy he'd let the floors and walls get and had decided on an impromptu cleaning session, he'd told Sora. He turned off the sign and kept the lights off to discourage any demons or night creatures from trying to get in while he scrubbed and polished the interior.

"Continuing our debate, what's so great about Lestat?"

"Um, he was a _rock star_? Chyeah?" Axel said incredulously, shaking his head at the brown haired boy who was now perched on the end of a table, his legs swinging lazily. "I'd like to see Dracula pull that shit off."

Sora watched his friend cleaning, his long, stick-like arms rapidly rearranging bottles and flipping chairs over as he cleaned the underside. Though he said it was just because of the dirty state of his business, the brunette boy watched him skeptically. Axel was not a neat-freak. Filth did not bother him-- that was why the bar had gotten to its less than pristine state in the first place.

Axel cleaned and organized when he was nervous or scared or threatened. Or when he didn't want to deal with something. Last time, it was when he was having trouble making rent. The time before that, a rather brutish Sickle demon was threatening him and his beloved motorcycle. Each time, Axel turned his bar upside down and spent his worry and frustration on cleaning.

"We're never going to agree on this… okay, new topic. Which Spiderman movie is your favourite?"

"Ooooh, that's tough. It's between one and three for me."

"Really?" Sora wrinkled his nose. "I liked two. The third one sucked. Majorly."

Axel paused in his sweeping of the floor. "Yeah. It was embarrassing. I contemplated walking out of the theater halfway through it, I'm not gonna lie."

"Then why would you pick it as one of the contenders for your favourite?" he asked snarkily, looking at Axel like he was a confused, confused child.

"Cause it has Venom, duh. He's the third movie's saving grace." Axel dragged the broom along behind him as he walked behind the counter, picking up a rag and a bottle of Windex from a low shelf and propping the broom up against the wall.

"You only say that 'cause you wish you could _be_ Venom. Sicko." Sora shook his head at the tall, thin man disapprovingly.

The redhead shrugged. "Venom is awesome. It can't be denied." He approached the large windows at the front of the building and began spritzing, letting the glass cleaner run down the windows in little blue rivulets before proceeding to wipe the glass. He swept across the surface in large circles, whistling softly as he looked out onto the dark and empty street. The lamp in front of his bar had gone out _again_, he noted sourly, mentally blaming it on the fulgur demons that frequented his bar and had the tendency to suck electricity from anything within a three foot radius. They also messed with electronic devices-- he'd lost two cell phones and at least one neon sign shaped like a bottle of Corona to their funky powers already.

He noticed a particularly stubborn spot of grime on the glass and leaned forward to see it better in the dim light, rubbing at it furiously all the while. After a few second of this, he pressed his nose to the glass, squinting as he looked for any sign of the spot.

SMACK. And a loud hiss.

"OH FUCK!" Axel shouted as he fell backward, away from the window and onto the floor. Sora was at his side at an instant, grabbing his elbow and helping the gangly man up.

The Slayer looked at the window, where Riku was pressed up against the glass, his eyes narrowed into catlike slits, his teeth bared and pressed against the window, his sharpened nails scritch-scritching on the smooth surface. His shoulders were shaking as he laughed at the visibly pissed Axel, who had one hand pointed at Riku, resolutely flipping him off, while the other massaged the area of his chest right over his heart.

Sora sighed. "Do you mind if I let him in?"

"DO I-- YES, I MIND! I mind a whole damn lot! I'm having _chest pains_, Sora. Chest pains."

"I know. Let me let him in and I'll chew him out for you." He looked up at Axel with the big, sad eyes that he knew the older man couldn't resist. "Please? He really deserves it."

"Fine. But if he's coming, I'm leaving," he hissed, grabbing his coat and his messenger bag from bench. "Enjoy your time with him. Try cleaning up a little for me, yeah?"

"Ax, please, you don't have to go! I didn't mean it like tha--"

"Lock up before you leave," the redhead said over him, tossing the keys over his shoulder as he headed out the back entrance, leaving through the store room without another word.

Sora clenched his jaw and looked to the front window, where Riku was still standing, though now more humanly in appearance. He was watching the Slayer with amusement and a slight, cocky smirk. Sora regretted asking to let the vampire in, mumbling curses as he went to the front and unlocked the solid, wooden door.

"Whew. About time, Slayer. I was getting cold out there," he smiled, standing unnecessarily close to the brunette, looking down at his spiky, unmanageable hair and sighing.

"Shut up. You didn't have to do that to Axel." The boy gave him a dark look and backed away, getting a good six feet of distance between them before he turned his back and proceeded to the storage room that had long ago been converted to a makeshift training room.

"What, the human?" Riku scoffed as he followed, careful to keep to the distance that the Slayer had allowed him. "Who cares?"

"_I_ care," Sora said sternly, whirling on the vampire and pressing a finger against his cold, hard chest. "You don't seem to understand-- Axel isn't my friend. He's my _best_ friend. My only friend. My only real human contact. And I'd do anything for him, because hurting him is hurting me."

Riku was taken aback, and his shock pleased Sora in a way he couldn't exactly define. "Sorry." The surprised vampire sounded genuine. He also looked sincere, and even a little scared of the Slayer. "I didn't think… he was that important to you. I'll lay off of him."

"Good." The brown haired boy turned abruptly back around and continued on to the next room, not bothering to hold the door for his companion.

They stood in awkward silence in the store room; the only light filtered through the windows high on the wall, close to the ceiling, an eerie glow of mixed light from the moon and streetlamps. A large, thick blue mat was laid on the bare concrete floor. Sora nudged it with his toes.

"For the record," Riku said softly, "when I swore to never hurt him, I fully intended to follow through on that. I wasn't aware that pranks were off-limits. You never expressly said that."

"Oh, I'm sorry Riku. Next time I'll give you a typed list of what's acceptable behavior and what isn't. Should I break down the whole 'no killing people' thing for you as well? You might not realize this, since I didn't _expressly_ say it, but torture is off-limits also. So is flaying, and poisoning, and raping, and driving people insane. Do I need to go into further detail?" He huffed and crossed his arms, watching the vampire unblinkingly.

"Okay, you're in a bad mood," Riku said quietly, raising his silvery eyebrows and clucking his tongue. "I'm not going to mess with you right now."

"Good idea." He shuffled his feet, rubbing the dirty soles of his sneakers against the floor, letting his anger simmer off. Sora'd never been one to hold onto bitter feelings for long, which was both good and bad, he reasoned. "Sorry, Riku," he whispered, rubbing his arm and looking at the floor. "I overreacted a bit. It's just… Axel hasn't been having a very good time lately, and neither have I, I guess, and it's just getting to me."

"I understand," Riku said with a nod, putting his hands in his pockets and slowly approaching the boy. "I should have known better as well. I know you're still undecided about me, and I need to be on my best behavior." He shrugged, the fuzzy fabric of his sweater rumpling at the action. "Scaring your best friend half to death probably isn't the greatest way for me to prove my trustworthiness to you," he said with a smile.

"No, it's really not," Sora laughed.

"So… you read the book?" He glanced up at Sora curiously, his eyes watching for the boy's reaction.

"Parts," Sora nodded. "The one you wrote for me," he added quickly, "not the one from the other Slayer, because you seem to have forgotten that I don't speak German."

Riku looked lost for a moment before making a sound of disappointed understanding. "Ah, right. Forgot that one wasn't in English for you."

Sora grinned at that. "Anyway, I can't say I enjoyed what I read about you, but I… appreciate you telling me. If you want me to trust you-- eventually, I mean-- well, that's a pretty solid step."

The vampire nodded. "If you ever want to talk about it…" he trailed off, hunching his shoulders. "I'm open to that."

"Yeah… so, this training stuff," Sora yawned, stretching out as he spoke. "Are you, uh, still interested?"

"Absolutely." Riku perked up, his eyes lighting and his mouth curving into a smile once again. "Right now?"

"Sure, why not?" Sora laughed, throwing his arms out to the sides.

* * *

Axel fumed as he paced down the yellow-lit street. He put a cigarette between his lips and fought the wind to light it. It was bitterly cold, but he was too pissed to be cold.

'_This is Riku's stupid fucking fault,'_ he smoldered, puffing away on his smoke. He felt a lingering twinge of anger at Sora as well. It was unlike the brunette to actually _want_ the vampire there. _'Hell, Sora doesn't even like coming to my bar 'cause he hates being around vampires and stuff so much. What's so great about goddamn Riku all of a sudden?'_

The street was empty, with the exception of Axel and a homeless man that appeared to be sleeping. The redhead walked right by him, still cursing about Riku and fretting over his cigarette. The homeless man's blank eyes followed him; a trail of freezing blood lined the man's throat, leaking sluggishly from the fresh tear in his throat.

The bartender tossed his finished smoke onto the ground and stepped on it. He gradually slowed as he approached a streetlight and then leaned against it, pressing his forehead against the biting metal and hoping it would cool him off a bit. He thunked his head against the metal pole, punishing himself. "Stupid, stupid, stupid… always overreacting. Way to show your maturity in front of Sora and the vampire, Axel."

"You did something stupid? I can't say that I'm surprised," a coolly mocking voice said from behind him.

Axel tensed without thinking; his grip on the pole tightened. _'There's no way this is happening. I'm imagining it. I haven't slept right in three days, I haven't been eating well, I think I might be sick, it could be delirium?'_ His mind raced through explanations, each more pleasant than what reality seemed to be at the moment. Emerald eyes slipped shut, wordlessly hoping that the childhood solution of shutting your eyes and pretending it wasn't there would work.

"I'm waiting, bartender," the voice prodded. A cold hand snaked up his back, underneath his jacket and shirt, even colder than the chilled air it let it. "And I'm _impatient_." The words were whispered so close to his ear that he felt them. Them, and the nails that were trailing over his back, hard enough to bring pain but light enough not to draw blood.

"What do you want?" he asked in a shaking voice, not bothering to turn his head and face this vampire. He didn't think he could do it.

"I made you a promise, bartender. I keep my promises," Roxas said huskily, the hand under Axel's clothing snaking up around his neck. In one powerful movement he pulled the tall man down toward him and bit into his throat.

* * *

"Hey," Cloud half-shouted, glancing around nervously at the bystanders that turned to give him looks. He perched on the curb, leaning out into the street, praying that no passersby bumped into him from behind and knocked him out into the road that was crawling with cars.

"Hey!" he called again, louder, this time jogging across the street as he said it, weaving through the traffic. Cloud's mother had always expressly warned him about crossing when the DO NOT WALK sign was flashing, but the blonde had, for probably only the third or fourth time in his life, decided to throw caution to the wind. What he was running toward was worth a possible hip fracture, concussion, or hit-and-run.

"Hey," he breathed as he came to a stop on the other side of the street, winded from a combination of his sprint and his nerves. He rubbed his bright red nose, and looked down to the cobbled sidewalk, embarrassed already. Here he was flailing through moving traffic, yelling in desperation, while Griever-- Leon-- was the epitome of calm and cool, dressed in a black turtleneck and _leather_, watching him inexpressively as he made a fool of himself.

The younger man noticed people around them staring-- not at him, he knew, but at the tall, dark and handsome brunette next to him-- and they weren't just love-struck schoolgirls, either. Older women, young mothers, even a few men cast appreciative looks their way, trying to catch Leon's eye with their sidelong glances. Cloud felt a twinge of jealously and irrational possessiveness, frowning behind his scarf as he swallowed the fact that he held no claim over the stunning, scarred man and would have to stomach the wandering eyes of others for the duration of their time together.

"Hey." The dark haired man raised his eyebrows slightly as he greeted the flushed blonde. _'Blonde hair, blue eyes, rosy cheeks…I love internet dating.' _Leon pretended to shiver and slid his gloved hands into his snug pockets. "It's cold out tonight."

"Sure is. The sidewalk in front of my house iced over and I completely bit i-- uh, never mind. You don't need to know that. Are you, uh, Griever?" the blonde asked skeptically, his expression hopeful. He pulled his navy scarf up over the lower half of his face, self-conscious of the way the cold made always his nose and cheeks so bright-- Rudolph, they'd called him in middle school. The school bullies had even held him down and taped antler-like twigs to his head one winter.

"Yes. And your name is Cloud, correct?" Leon asked, though he already knew the answer. The vampire had first tried online dating as a way of meeting interesting new humans-- and meals, if he felt like it-- several years ago, and had learned through experience that it wasn't wise to trust a dating profile and picture. He'd tracked down Cloud, scoped him out, _days_ before this arranged date. He already knew the man's morning routine (alarm, snooze button, alarm again, out of bed, shower, breakfast, then dressing, then brushing and flossing), his favourite thing to watch on TV (cooking shows), and how Cloud almost obsessively fluffed the cushions on his sofa while he watched the news.

Leon smiled almost imperceptibly, and Cloud caught it, giving the same smile back.

And Leon smiled wider at this, pleased that his subtlety wasn't lost on the blonde.

* * *

"What are you doing?" Axel asked groggily. Vaguely, he felt himself being pushed up against something hard. A wall. His head hit the bricks, and pain, slow and dull, reminded him that he wasn't dead. Yet.

"What does it feel like?" the vampire hissed in between licks. He ran his cool pink tongue over Axel's neck, soothing the gash there. With each lick the wound healed a little more, resealing until all that remained was a faint pink-silver scar.

"I'm not dead." The redhead shivered. It was cold. He could feel cold seeping from the concrete and brick that were pressed against his back, and cold from the vampire that was straddling his lap. He was all that was warm.

"No, you're not. Luckily for you, I just finished a meal minutes before you came along. I don't gorge myself like other vampires do. I know when I'm full," the blonde one whispered, his eyes deadly in their focus on the human man. "But don't worry. I'll find a use for you yet, human."

He dug a delicate hand into the hair at the nape of Axel's neck and pulled his head back, forcing the man to look up into his wickedly blue eyes. "Don't worry. You'll enjoy this as well, at least a little. I promise."

* * *

"And this," Riku said with an air of superiority, "is the _correct_ method for using a throwing knife." He flung the knife with near perfect accuracy, hitting the misshapen center of the lopsided bull's-eye that Sora had hastily drawn onto the wall.

"All right, all right, I get it: you're right, and I've been doing it wrong the entire time. But my method _worked_, I'll have you know," Sora huffed. "Sixty percent of the time," he added under his breath.

"Okay, now don't panic, but I want to do some practice with escaping from holds. Sound good?"

"Yeah. Fine." Sora cracked his knuckles and stepped onto the blue mat, watching Riku with mild apprehension.

The vampire circled and approached him slowly from behind; the Slayer turned his head, watching him carefully from the corner of his eye. Riku put his hands on the brunette's shoulders and whispered into his ear. "Trust me. In a real fight, you won't see your enemy grab you from behind."

Sora nodded and turned forward, inhaling deeply. He felt Riku's arms wrap around him suddenly, one pinning his left arm to his side and the other hooking around his neck. The Slayer heaved his weight to one side, pulling them both to the ground so that he could at least use his legs. He wound his legs around the legs of the vampire behind him, constricting Riku's movement. They struggled, Sora prying at the strong arm that was looped around his neck and Riku fighting to free his legs while still holding onto the Slayer's upper body.

It was only after another five minutes of kicking and grappling that Riku succeeded in flipping the human boy onto his stomach, crushing the air out of him with his weight and managing to get his mouth on the base of Sora's neck. He felt the Slayer tense underneath him and removed his lips, letting his teeth trail slightly over the skin to let Sora know that he had held true on his promise not to harm him, despite having the perfect opportunity. He released the boy from his grip, sighing and rolling off to the side so he could breathe again.

"You handled that better than I expected," the vampire said with a coy grin.

Sora rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I did _so_ good that you pinned me _and_ got to my neck. I feel proud now." The vampire chuckled at the putting teen's sarcasm. "Do you mind if I go get some water?"

"Not at all, Slayer."

Riku followed the Slayer back into the front of the building, where empty tables and empty chairs sparsely filled the floor and the vacant bar area was steeped in shadow.

"Would you like anything to drink? He has blood," Sora offered, pointing to the refrigerated kegs. "I can heat it up for you."

"I'm fine." Riku watched the brunette boy gulp down a full glass of water without taking a single breath and smiled. "Impressive."

"I know, right? I used to-- what is it?" Sora frowned, his brow creasing, as he saw Riku's head whip to the front door.

The vampire ignored him, concentrating on the entrance. After half a minute, he turned back to the boy. "I don't know. I just thought I heard somethi--"

An unexpectedly loud crash made them both jump, the noise shattering the calm of the night. Glass sprayed across the hardwood floor, clinking and chiming, and something dark and long-legged crept through the shattered window, carefully arching its body over the jagged chunks of glass that remained in the frame.

"Riku," Sora whispered, looking worriedly toward the vampire.

Riku responded by shaking his head. He pointed to the demon, then to his own cerulean eyes, and then shook his head. He then held a finger up to his lips and bid the Slayer be quiet.

The demon slowly navigated the area near the window where it had entered, its long, spindly legs sprawling out and feeling over the shards of glass. It twisted its large, flat head from side to side, trying to pick up the sounds of potential prey.

Sora could not help his expression; demons disgusted him, especially the lesser ones, and his face showed it very clearly. As this one wandered closer, he could see that it only had dark pits where eyes should be. It reminded him of a gecko, only in a mutated, evil form. It wore a horrifying necklace, a string of tiny hands, each threaded onto the silvery chain around its neck. _'Children's hands,'_ Sora realized with a lurch of his stomach and a rush of anger. Its short, stubby tail, its flat, triangular shaped head, its beetle-like skin… it all repulsed him.

Sora noticed Riku moving slowly and silently out of the corner of his peripheral vision. The vampire was steadily approaching the crooked-legged demon, stalking it in absolute silence, flanking it with careful, calculated steps.

Until one step was miscalculated.

A tiny creak was all that the demon needed, it whipped to the side, facing Riku, and opened its jaws nearly one-hundred-and-eighty degrees, displaying row after row of needle like teeth and two threadlike tongues that tangled around each other. It launched itself at him, a mess of long, grossly thin limbs and a leech-like mouth.

Sora leapt forward and grabbed the tail, digging his short nails into its flesh, hoping to cause some kind of pain to the beast. Riku grabbed one arm and snapped it like a twig, much to Sora's approval. The demon screeched and then continued to snap its massive jaws at the vampire, who struggled to maintain his hold on the creature while still avoiding the needle-filled mouth.

"We need a sword," he shouted to Sora, making himself heard over the whines and snaps and hisses of the demon.

"I can handle him for a minute! You grab one of the swords from the other room, on the count of three: one, two, three!"

Riku released the demon and sprung backward before suddenly changing direction and sprinting to the storage room. As soon as it was released, the demon twisted its body and doubled back, trying to attack Sora, who still had a firm grip on its tail.

Sora jerked the scabby tail as hard as he could, flipping the demon around and sending its head crashing against the side of the bar. He shook it again, bashing its toothy head against the wooden floor, listening to the thud and the following crack with satisfaction. It bucked against the floor, hissing and clawing, before a lengthy portion of a sword was shoved through the back of its neck and into the floor, pinning it there. Blood, black like swamp water and viscous like oil, spilled out over the floor, making the demon slip as it tried to claw itself free.

"What is that?" Sora panted, checking his arms for cuts-- there were three long, uneven slices where the demon's claws had caught him.

"A caecus demon. Strange… they usually only prey on the young and the sick. I've never heard of one coming after a vampire or a Slayer intentionally." They watched its movements slow as blood loss began to take its toll.

"Maybe it was confused?" Sora shrugged.

"Possibly."

"Is it dead yet? I can't tell." Sora leered over the motionless demon, wary of getting too close. It was the same way he behaved with dead cockroaches-- you never knew if they were really dead or if they were going to start twitching and crawling and flying again.

"Almost." Riku stepped forward and withdrew the sword. He studied the black-covered tip, touching the blood and rubbing it between his thumb and middle finger thoughtfully. "It stings. I think the blood is poisoned?"

"You think? I thought you knew all about demons, what with your bingo book and all…" Sora edged a little closer to the caecus, curiosity getting the better of him. "Look at its spine. It's all sticky looking. Weird."

"Slayer, there are well over a thousand types of demon. I don't know every single thing about every single one. I do know that caecus demons aren't usually this strong, or persistent. They like weak prey, not Slayers and formidable vampires."

"That's why it has that sick necklace, huh?" Sora sneered and nudged the demon with the toe of his sneakers, wishing he had some kind of incinerator to destroy the depraved creature.

With a high screech, the blood-slicked demon spun around and seized Sora's ankle in is bony claws. Its jaws flared open, the rings of needle-teeth surrounding its black throat bending and flexing, anxious to bite into his leg.

Without hesitation, Riku flipped the sword around in his hand and jabbed it back into the demon, this time directly through the head. The red and blue hilt shook violently as the caecus demon shuddered. Movement stopped and the body began to shrink and curl inward on itself, leaving behind just a pool of brackish blood and a shriveled husk of a body.

The vampire gave Sora a cocky smile and a confident wink. "You're welco--"

"YOU SAID IT WAS DEAD!" the brunette shouted, his finger pointed at Riku accusatorially.

"No, I said it was _almost_ dead. Almost."

"Newsflash-- _almost_ dead is not good enough," the Slayer argued, already in full-on pout mode. He took an angry step toward the vampire, slipped on the pool of blood, regained his balance, and then crossed his arms, looking sternly at Riku.

"Fine. Next time, I'll kill it right away, because the Slayer only likes his demons one-hundred percent dead. 'Almost dead' just isn't good enough for him," he said mockingly.

Sora rolled his eyes. "Why would I _ever_ be okay with just leaving a demon half-dead? That makes zero sense," he said with a laugh, shaking his head.

The vampire just shrugged, a faint smile on his lips as he wiped down the blade of the sword with a stained rag.

The brunette sighed and leaned against the countertop, letting it brace him. "Oh boy," Sora said weakly. He looked up at the destroyed front window. "Axel is going to flip."

* * *

"So… you teach? That must be rewarding." Leon stirred the small espresso in front of him as he spoke, his pale hand moving in minute circles.

"It depends on your definition of rewarding, I guess," Cloud responded with an easy smile, his hands cupped around the tall mocha latte he'd ordered. "There are some students that I just love having, but others…"

"Are demonic?" the brunette suggested helpfully, his head slightly tilted.

"You have no idea," the blonde chuckled, looking down into his cup. "Would you like some more espresso? Or some coffee? That cup is pretty small."

"Ah, no thank you. This is just fine. I should cut back on the coffee anyway." He smiled inside. The human's concern was sweet, but unnecessary. After becoming a vampire, there was really only one type of human beverage that Leon continued to like, and that was alcohol. The miniscule cup of espresso he'd ordered was more for show than anything, meant to please Cloud and avoid arousing any suspicion. The vampire found the taste of espresso rather disgusting, but it was a necessary hardship if he was going to appear normal to the young blonde.

'_It's really not _that_ horrible once you drink it for a while,_' Leon thought as he sipped on the steaming beverage. Of course, it also helped that he'd dumped half the espresso and then poured in vodka from a flask in his coat pocket when the school teacher hadn't been looking. Strangely, the chocolate haired vampire felt slightly guilty for doing so, especially since the drinks had been Cloud's treat.

The tiny café's smoky yellow lighting made everything seem to glow-- Cloud's softly tanned skin especially, the vampire noted with interest. They were seated at a small table beside the front window; it was so small, in fact, that their legs couldn't help but touch, Cloud's knees bumping into Leon's frequently, making him sputter and apologize and look shyly out the window and onto the streets.

Cloud sat in nervous contentment, his chin resting on the palm of his hand in between sips of his drink. His eyes flitted to Leon three or four times every minute. Whenever he thought the man had caught him looking, he would quickly avert his eyes, staring instead at a wall, or some other café patron. Twice he noticed people staring at Leon, and in an unusual display of aggression, he'd given both of the offending stare-ers squinty, evil looks until they got freaked out and turned away.

Leon appreciated seeing Cloud without his scarf and puffy jacket on. He looked like a shapely marshmallow with the jacket, and the scarf covered so much of his face that it should have been a crime. Underneath, the young man was wearing a dark, soft-looking maroon sweater; it showed his shape nicely without being tight, and the low, v-shaped cut showed a generous amount of neck. Leon approved.

Leon also noticed the poorly concealed glances that the blonde sent across the table; clearly, his form-fitting black turtleneck was achieving the desired results. The vampire smirked inwardly and folded his hands on the table, looking directly into the wide and gorgeously blue eyes of his date.

"Are you enjoying the coffee? I'd originally planned to ask you to dinner, but it just seemed too formal--"

"No, no, this is great," Cloud answered in a rush. "I mean, I wouldn't mind… going out to dinner with you some time. You seem really great. I just had a bad dinner experience recently, so I was actually kind of relieved when you asked about going out for coffee."

"A bad experience?" The scarred vampire cocked his head and appeared interested.

"Oh. Yeah. This guy I knew from the place I get my taxes done asked me out to dinner, and it was a disaster. Halfway through the meal he went to the bathroom. He didn't come back."

"Oh. How rude." Leon scoffed. _'And idiotic. Oh, well-- his loss, my gain.'_

"Yeah. I think he ditched me," the blonde said honestly, biting his lip and nodding. "But it wouldn't be the first time. In college, when I went out on my first _real_ date," he said with a sigh, leaning forward so that he could lower his voice and keep this story between the two of them, "we went out for dinner, and my date ended up having sex with our waiter in the alley behind the restaurant. He told me that he had to make a phone call, and when he didn't come back after fifteen minutes, one of the waitresses came by to tell me what was up so that I wouldn't be waiting for him like a fool when he came back." Cloud coughed softly and smoothed out his napkin. "Me and dinner dates don't have the greatest record, exactly," he said with a soft grimace.

"Well." He looked up and Cloud and rested his chin on top of his folded hands. "We're not at a restaurant, we're not out for dinner, we don't have a waiter, and I promise not to go to the bathroom _or_ leave to make a phone call, so you don't have to worry about any of that happening again." Despite the fact that his tone was matter-of-fact and devoid of any real emotion and that his expression was blank and aloof, his words managed to convey some reassurance to the blonde.

Cloud wiped his mouth with a napkin to hide his smile from the other man, who didn't have a clue as to how relieved the teacher was to hear those words.

* * *

Axel couldn't remember passing out. He _did_, however, remember waking up.

And for a moment, everything was clear, and he was his normal self again. He knew he was in a bed, somewhere warm, and the ceiling was a creamy white, but there were dark splatters that looked like blood. He began to struggle, and that's when the sharp pain and then the dull fogginess returned.

He looked up to see Roxas, sitting on his chest, his thin wrist held to the vampire's red, red mouth. "Are you going to behave now, my silly human?"

He nodded, too tired to disagree, or to resist. He felt the pressure on his chest ease, and then a cold hand grabbed his face, angling it up.

Lips, cool and firm, pressed against his own. A tongue, so much more gentle than the vampire it belonged to, eased its way into his mouth.

Axel didn't resist. The fog in his mind confused him. _'And besides,'_ he thought dizzily, _'it isn't so bad once you get used to it.'_

Hands joined the tongue in exploring his body, roaming over his chest and shoulders and down to his hands, where they laced fingers with his own. The redheaded bartender realized dully that he was already naked, stripped while he'd been asleep. _'Is he naked, too?'_ He pushed his own hands along Roxas' skin, feeling up his folded legs and onto his hips.

'_Yup.'_

Roxas laughed and turned his attentions to the redhead's jaw, gradually working down his neck and onto his chest. His mouth was cold and his teeth frequently nipped at tender flesh, causing the human to gasp and yelp.

The drug-like fog was slowly dissipating again, and Axel found himself enjoying Roxas' alternative activity more than he was comfortable with. It was one thing to suck it up and let the vampire have his way in order to survive; it was quite another to be _liking_ it and wanting more. He shuddered with apprehension as the biting, nipping vampire worked lower and lower.

"Oh, calm down," Roxas chided.

"A little nip on the collar is one thing, but a nip down there…" Axel's voice was laced with anxiety, and he squirmed under the blonde's icy touch.

"Hm. I'll watch the teeth, then." Roxas let his fangs scrape the redhead's hip, leaving shallow cuts along the pale skin. Red dots welled up along the two lines; Roxas languidly licked up the tiny dots, his eyes locked with Axel's the entire time, watching the man watch him. Watching him watch and _loving_ it.

Roxas smirked softly as the redhead continued to stare at him, licking his bruised lips, wiping away the small amounts of blood that that were pooling on his chest where the vampire had bitten a bit hard and not licked enough to fully heal.

Axel gasped and shivered uncontrollably as Roxas finally took him into his mouth. He grasped at the sheets with one hand, seeking to grab something sturdy, and fisted the other hand in the blonde's soft spikes, loosening and tightening his grip in the vampire's hair irregularly.

It was cold.

* * *

"God, it's freezing." Cloud rubbed his mitten-covered hands together, puffed his warm breath against them, and then went back to rubbing. The wind gave a weak but chilling gust, making the lampposts creak and the trees sway and the blonde shiver.

"I thought mittens were just for children?" The vampire looked over at the pouting blonde man and feigned innocence, his expression pure curiosity. He openly smirked only after the flustered Cloud turned his head away.

"I don't know what you're talking about. Adults wear them all the time. Why else would they make them in adult sizes," the man mumbled, sticking his hands into the pockets of his puffy white jacket, hiding them away so they couldn't be mocked. "What about you?" he asked, trying to change the topic. "Do you ever get cold? All you're wearing is that thin turtleneck and a leather jacket. That can't be very warm."

"I have gloves also," the slightly taller man argued, pulling a hand from his pocket and displaying the black leather glove that covered it.

Cloud shook his head disapprovingly. "You're going to get sick. And then I'll feel guilty for not offering you my warm, puffer jacket. And then I'll have to make you chicken noodle soup as compensation."

"From scratch?"

"Yes, from scratch. I don't watch a gazillion cooking shows just to make that gross condensed stuff from the ca-- AAAG," the blonde flailed as he slipped on a patch of frozen sidewalk. He fully expected to land disgracefully on his backside. He also expected to hurt his back again-- years upon years of accidents on icy pavement had not done any favors to Cloud's spine, and each successive fall hurt worse than the last. But instead of cold sidewalk and searing pain, he felt strong hands catch him around the waist.

The man gasped a thank you to Leon and struggled to his feet, leaning heavily against the brunette for support. Just as he thought he'd regained his footing, he slipped again. As Leon reached to grab him a second time, Cloud tried desperately to save face and maintain his balance; instead, his waving arms managed to cause more trouble. As the taller man wrapped an arm around the blonde to steady him, Cloud felt his elbow hit the brunette in side of his chest. Hard. He also saw a momentary flicker of pain cross the scarred man's face and heard him gasp.

"Oh God, oh God, I'm sorry. Leon, I did not mean to elbow you. I did it hard, too. I'm so sorry," he apologized in one worried, shaking breath, his shocked eyes opened wide. He put one mittened hand on Leon's shoulder and the other at his hip, trying to steady the dark-haired man as he recovered from the surprising pain.

"Oh, that's not your fault," he sighed as he motioned for them to proceed to a nearby bench. They clung to each other on the slippery pavement, shuffling toward the rickety wooden seat. "Normally, a hit like that wouldn't bother me the slightest. But I made the mistake of getting my son a Wii. He accidentally punched me earlier while he was playing it… at least, I _think_ it was accidentally." He looked thoughtful. "It left a bruise-- which shows how intense he gets when it comes to video games, because I don't bruise easily-- and you just had good aim to hit it."

"You have a son?" The blonde was visibly surprised.

The vampire could read his thoughts as though they were floating above his head in a thought-bubble. "Yes, but don't worry: he's adopted. A teenager."

"Oh, wow," the young man smiled as they rested on the bench. "A teenaged son? That's amazing. Most guys… they wouldn't do that." Cloud rubbed the back of his head, mussing the golden spikes thoughtfully. "That's so cool of you."

"I actually have three."

"_Three_? You adopted three kids? Holy shit! Most of the biological parents I meet can barely handle one!" Despite the scarf that hid most of his face, Leon could tell the blonde was smiling like mad. "Are you some kind of saint, Leon?"

The vampire snorted, covering his mouth with his gloved hand as he laughed at the ludicrousness of the idea. "Hardly."

"You're being modest. I'll nominate you for canonization or whatever the next time I visit a Catholic church," the blonde chuckled, arching his back and reaching behind him to pull down his thick white jacket. The bench was icy, and his pants were doing very little to keep the cold out. He wiggled onto the hem of the puffer jacket and sighed. "That's better."

"Much better?"

"Much better."

The two sat in silence, Cloud pulling down his scarf and puffing into the air, watching his breath freeze, and Leon poking himself in the leg repeatedly with a thick needle in order to remind himself to breathe like a human. One disadvantage to the cold was that it was much easier for a human to notice a slip up-- all a vampire had to do was forget to go through the motions of humanity, even for just a minute.

"Would you… would you like to come inside and warm up?" the brunette offered a few minutes later, his voice soft and hinting. "I only live down the street."

Cloud met his eyes instantly. "I'd love to do that-- it's just, I can't," he finished disappointedly. "I offered to help the head of my department finish reviewing syllabi and help with the cataloguing. She's really, really behind…" The man looked down at his lap, chewing his tongue as he thought it over. "It should have been done months ago. But… I really wish--"

"Rain check?"

"What?"

"Will you take a rain check?" Leon asked. "Is that how the saying is?"

"Yeah, I think so. And of course I will," he added with a vigorous nod. "I'll just have to darken your door some other cold night, right?"

The vampire leaned in, pulling down the thin navy cotton of the scarf, and brushed his lips against the blonde's, the fleeting touch of his icy lips against Cloud's warm, chapped ones enough to shock him. "I'd be delighted if you would."

* * *

Axel woke on the fire escape of his apartment, wrapped in a thick comforter, his messenger bag placed underneath his head as a pillow. It was after sunup, though only barely. The air was still cold, but not nearly as bad as it was the night before.

He rolled over and saw that someone had opened the window to his apartment for him, which was good, since it had been locked and he didn't feel like breaking a window just to get inside his own place.

And knowing his moronic neighbors, they'd probably have called the cops on him.

He wobbled to his feet, hissing lowly as he rose. He'd never hurt this badly after sex. Ever. But then again, he'd never had sex with a vampire before. Maybe this was normal. Or maybe Roxas was just sadistic. The second seemed more likely…

The redhead climbed in through the window and dropped his bag and the blanket onto the floor. He immediately proceeded to the kitchen for a Snickers, and then to his bedroom. With the candy bar in his mouth, he stripped in front of the mirror.

"Mm. You did one hell of a number on me, Roxas," he muttered to himself, noting the bites and the puncture marks, the scratches… "Holy hell! When did those get there?" he asked himself in confusion, noticing the long, deep marks on his upper back for the first time. "I did not feel those when they happened, that's for sure." He reached an arm around and poked at the cuts, wincing as the contact brought pain and mild discomfort.

He stood shakily in front of the mirror, feeling along the large but faint scar on the side of his throat. The skin there was unusually cold and smooth, faintly shining. He felt as though he'd been marked.

Maybe he had.

As he tore into the Snickers, Axel thought about taking a shower. He went into the bathroom, turned on the hot water, stuck a bare arm in, hissed when his wounds burned, and decided that bathing could wait. He flopped into his bed, kicking aside the piles of clothes that he usually left lying on his bed since he didn't have any drawers. The sheets were cool and soothing, their softness and smell familiar and relaxing to the redhead.

He rolled around on the bed, trying to find to comfortable position. Everything was sore. Especially his hips, which were dark with bruising. Any way he turned put pressure on _some_ wound, making the man sigh in resignation.

Whenever he closed his eyes, he could see the impish blonde, feel his touch again. So refined and pure on the surface, but so fell and blood-lustful underneath.

'_For someone so small, he's surprisingly aggressive.'_

* * *

It was late in the afternoon when Axel stopped by Sora's house to drop off a bucket of fried chicken and some macaroni and cheese for the boy's dinner.

He knocked softly on the door of the tiny, paint-chipped house and received a muffled 'come in!' from the brunette that lived there. The redhead let himself in and shut the door behind him. He limped into the kitchen, where the Slayer was hovering over a sink filled with suds and washing out dishes.

"Hey, Ax. I rented that new movie about the-- oh my God," Sora said in outrage, staring open-mouthed at his battered friend. "What happened to you?" Thin cuts wrapped around the man's long neck, as did yellow bruises and what looked like hickeys. There were dark circles under the redhead's eyes, and he looked pale and weak.

The bar owner plopped the bag of chicken onto the table and sighed. "Roxas happened to me."

"He attacked you?" Sora's look said 'oh no, he didn't', along with a number of other catty things about the blonde vampire; he huffed and began to peel off his yellow dishwashing gloves.

"Hold on there, cowboy," Axel chided him, grabbing the boy's arms and directing him back to the sink. "It's not a big deal. At least not now. Finish your cleaning, then sit down and eat some food. You look like you've lost weight."

"You're one to talk," the brunette mumbled, reluctantly returning to the last few dishes. He watched his friend concernedly, frowning at how slowly he moved, the way he rubbed gingerly at his neck. "Why did he do that to you?"

"Either he really hates me, or he really likes me. I'm kind of confused. Vampires do not make themselves easily understood," he muttered, and he could see from Sora's expression that the boy was in agreement. Axel groaned as he lowered himself onto one of the chairs beside the table. "I think… hey. Hey," the redhead repeated, his voice urgent. "What is that?"

"Oh, uh, that?" Sora pulled the drain in the sink and turned to Axel, looking anxiously toward the cake that the redhead was staring at. It was tall and delicious-looking, dark in chocolate color with homemade vanilla icing dripping down the sides. Rainbow sprinkles dotted the top. "It's a cake."

"Yes, I see that it's a cake. But you only make cakes when something horrible has happened… You've ruined cakes for me, y'know that? Every time I see one now, I remember how my favourite neighbor got turned into a red smear while you were fighting that big, hairy demon thing, or how you totaled my old car when that warlock was chasing you, or how that baby chupathingy you were hunting ate my cat." He turned worried green eyes on the brunette. "So… who died this time, Sora?"

"No one died." The boy fidgeted. He turned his face to the floor and hid his hands behind his back. "Except that big window at your bar," he added in a whisper, half-hoping that the man wouldn't hear. "That one you just got replaced a month ago."

Axel sighed heavily and let his head thump down on the tabletop. Sora grimaced and eased over to the redhead, sliding the gorgeous cake in front of him. "I made the same frosting from the time Mr. Meow got eaten. You really seemed to like the use of whole vanilla beans in the icing…"

Axel mumbled a sad 'thanks' and turned his head toward the dessert. One long, slender finger slid forth, brushing some icing from the side of the cake and then putting it into his mouth. "I miss Mr. Meow."

"I know," Sora said with a nod, sliding into the chair beside the redheaded bartender and patting him on the back. "I do too."

* * *

**Now, let the reviews fall like rain! A rainstorm of them! A flood! **


	7. Crescent

**ANGST. Sums up the chapter pretty well. I loved the reviews you guys gave-- they were awesome. The flood was muchly appreciated. I didn't reply to many at all, but you know why? I was hard at work. Yes, yes, hard at work, actually trying to space my updates less than three months apart. :D And here are the fruits of that labor! **

"_The light wraps you in its mortal flame._

_Abstracted pale mourner, standing that way_

_against the old propellers of the twilight_

_that revolves around you._

_Speechless, my friend, _

_alone in the loneliness of this hour of the dead_

_and filled with the lives of fire,_

_pure heir of the ruined day."_

_-- Pablo Neruda, The Light Wraps You_

* * *

Leon's keys clinked as he set them down on the glass table near the door. "Why does it smell like human in here?"

Roxas shrugged. "_You_ bring them home, don't you? So why can't we?" He sat on a dark leather sofa, picking idly at his short nails. Blood was caked underneath.

"I don't make messes with them. You and Riku do. That's why I made this a rule in the first place," the older vampire said icily, stormy eyes rigidly focused on the blonde. "What did you do with it?"

"It's gone, safe and sound and in one piece. Don't worry so much, Leon." Roxas glanced teasingly up at his sire. "I know better than to dirty up the place just because you're out for the night."

"I would hope so." Leon studied the young vampire intently, thoughtlessly kneading the jacket he held in his hands as he did. He couldn't remember Roxas letting a human go before, except to chase them down minutes later. _'Demyx, Riku, and now Roxas? Must be something in the blood here.'_

"A hot date?" the blonde asked skeptically, eyeing Leon from head to toe. "I like your outfit. You _exude_ sex, Leon. Did you get what you wanted, blood or otherwise?" He looked up to his sire curiously.

Leon's face remained impassive. "That does not concern you. I'm going to bed," he muttered, tossing his jacket onto a chair and yawning as he walked down the dark hall.

Riku stood silently in the kitchen, having just entered the apartment unnoticed while the other two vampires were talking. He met Roxas' death glare and matched it with a pissed squint of his own. The two brothers stared down the hallway to make sure that their sire was in his room.

The second he heard the click of the bedroom door, Roxas snarled at the younger vampire furiously. "Where did you take him? Why did you take him?"

"I took him back to his _home_, Roxas, where he belongs," Riku said angrily, slamming a tall, clear glass down onto the counter and then plunking a baggy of lamb's blood down next to it. "He's 'safe and sound and in one piece', thanks to _me_. He's highly important to the Slayer and I can't afford to have you fucking and killing someone so special to him, not while you're related to me."

"The Slayer doesn't necessarily know that we're--"

"Yes, he does. I told him."

Roxas blinked, biting the tip of his tongue and shaking his head in disbelief. "Why, why, _why _would you do that?" he hissed, his eyes narrowed in agitation. "Do you really think that he would hesitate for one second to kill you, or Demyx, or Leon, or me if it came down to it? He's the Slayer, Riku. He lives to wipe us out, and you're selling out your own blood--"

"Shut up, Roxas. At least I'm not the one sleeping with the Slayer's _best friend_." Riku cut open the pouch of blood with a single sharpened nail and emptied it into the glass, immensely enjoying the way Roxas' face drained and his mouth clenched shut.

"You took him out of my bed because you were scared I would kill him?"

"You were already halfway there, Rox. He was white as a sheet when I took him back," he admonished as he popped his glass into the microwave and pressed a few buttons to start it. He crossed his arms and examined the floor. "I wrapped him up in a blanket and left him outside his apartment window. He'll be fine."

Roxas slid down onto the sofa cushions, pulling his knees against his chest and wrapping his arms around his pajama-clad legs. "I wouldn't have done it, you know."

Riku stiffened at that, disbelief visible in his eyes. "I'm sure you wouldn't," he said mockingly, leaning heavily against the counter.

"I'm actually serious, you twit." The blonde was rubbing the bridge of his nose tiredly, still curled up on the sofa. Riku opened the microwave seconds before the timer went off, not wanting the loud, high beep to startle the other vampire or disturb Leon or Demyx. He left the warmed blood in the microwave, instead padding over to his brother and crouching on the floor beside him.

Roxas followed him out of the corner of his eye, looking unusually exhausted. "He's only a human, only a worm. He's annoying, too, like this buzzing little gnat. I just… he drives me crazy, and I have no earthly _idea_ why I didn't get rid of him earlier, because now… now I…" The sapphire-eyed vampire inhaled deeply a few times, his body shuddering slightly. "I feel sick. Possessed. Something."

Riku nodded, turning to the floor and licking his lips for a moment. "Why do you think you feel that way?" he asked curiously.

Roxas concentrated for a few seconds, thoughtful, and then turned on him with a fierce pout and cold eyes. "You and Demyx and your freakish disease," he said scornfully, "are making me act strangely and have disgusting feelings for humans."

"Oh, we're not doing that, Roxie," Riku said with an amused smile. "That's all coming from right inside here." He poked his older sibling in the chest.

Roxas looked down. "You mean the empty cavity where my heart used to be?" he asked dryly, burying his pale face in his hands ashamedly.

"You still have a heart," Riku sighed, getting back up and retrieving his cup of lamb's blood. "It's just… slightly out of use."

Roxas responded with a grunt.

"Want to try some?" the silver-haired vampire asked amiably, offering the glass to Roxas.

The blonde sniffed at it and wrinkled his nose, looking as though he'd just smelled something as foul as the sickly-sweet stench inside Demyx's closet. "Gross. I haven't sunk that low, and I never will," Roxas sniffed condescendingly.

"You say that now…"

"And I'll say it forever," the older of the two said with a tone of finality.

"I said the same thing, remember?" Riku teased, holding up the glass of animal blood and grinning. "And look where I am now."

The blonde covered his eyes. "No… it's too sad. How far our family has fallen. If the Palliata knew… if aunt Lulu and cousin Paine knew… and grandfather! What are we going to do at the family reunion? I can't be seen around you two. They'll think I'm one of you."

"You're already well on your way." Riku grinned as his older brother cursed and kicked and denied it, all while trying to smother himself with a throw pillow. "One of us, one of us, one of us," the silver-haired vampire chanted, laughing as Roxas writhed into the cushions, deploring his fate.

"Shut up, you stupid cow! I'm not going to be one of you. It's physical. I'm attracted to the way he looks, because it's different, and I'm just horny, and those things are flooding over. My… my-my feelings," Roxas muttered, wincing slightly as he said the word, "for the human are purely happenstance and will go away if I try hard enough to ignore them."

Riku shook his head. "No. No they won't." Then he switched to a smug nod. "They're there to stay, Roxas. Get used to it."

The older brother turned his head slowly, looking up at Riku with one half-opened eye. "You are much more gentle and supportive with Demyx. I find that unfair."

"Well, I find your thoughtless act of sexually attacking the single closest friend of my Slayer pretty unfair to _me_, so stop whining."

The blonde hid his face in the couch. "Jerk" came out muffled and muted, but still clear enough for Riku to understand.

The living room got quiet, and Riku was on the verge of heading to bed when Roxas spoke up. "Do you worry about the Slayer dying?" he asked nonchalantly, sniffing as he sat up.

"Yes. All the time." Riku swallowed, giving Roxas a hard stare.

The smaller vampire crossed his legs and turned away. "Then you should do something about it. His is _your_ human, after all."

"I plan on it. The last thing I want is some demon or another vampire or a fucking werewolf to get any ideas."

Roxas grunted and resumed his silence, leaning on the arm of the couch and staring at a low spot on the wall. He chewed on the tips of his nails, his eyes glazed over.

"That's bad for your teeth," Riku warned, draining the last of the blood and setting his cup on the table.

"I wish I hadn't come back," Roxas admitted suddenly, still looking at the wall. "Then everything would be like it's supposed to, like it was before, and I'd still be normal and want to eat that delicious redhead, not kiss him, and I wouldn't be surrounded by vampires that drink filthy animal blood, and I wouldn't have to deal with any of this strangeness, or all this illegal activity between you and the Slayer…" The blonde looked to be on the verge of tears, or some kind of breakdown. Riku was fully prepared to go into 'comfort Roxas mode', which was rarely used, because Roxas hardly ever cried or cracked in all the time Riku had known him.

"Ooooh, illegal activity? What are we talking about?" Demyx's head peeked up from behind the couch, his eyes wide and overly interested, zipping back and forth from Roxas to Riku.

Roxas stiffened, immediately pushing down whatever tears or emotions had been about to break through, and replied without missing a beat, so used to rebuffing the youngest vampire's intrusions. "Nothing that concerns, _you_, you little--"

"Demyx, how long were you hiding behind the couch?" Riku interrupted, squinting his eyes warningly as he questioned the dark blonde boy, who was crouched on the balls of his feet, rocking back and forth slowly.

"Like, two seconds, for serious. You two totally didn't see me roll down the hallway double-oh-seven style. If I was a ninja, I could have decapitated you both already." Demyx grinned open-mouthed and nodded to himself, confident of his would-be ninja skills. "Oh, but wait, even if I was, I couldn't, not really, 'cause I'm a pacifis--"

"You make me feel even more dead on the inside," Roxas huffed, grabbing a couch cushion and throwing it at the younger vampire's face with enough force to knock him on his backside. "I'm going to bed before you infect me with any more of that disgusting human-loving, life-appreciating, animal blood-sipping, pacifistic, violence-opposing crap that you've so clearly brought into the house."

Riku and Demyx listened as their elder brother stalked down the hallway and then slammed his door shut, making the pictures hanging along the hallway walls rattle.

Demyx glanced over to his brother with a smile. "I think he's getting used to me being back. He hasn't called me by a curse word or a derogatory name in over sixteen hours. That's almost the record, Riku!"

"What is the record, out of curiosity?"

"Twenty and a quarter. He was unconscious for twelve of those hours, though, so I'm not sure that time necessarily counts... This one is _way_ more valid. I'm on a roll. I just have to keep from annoying him for another--" he looked down at his watch "-- seven hours and twenty-eight minutes. I'm aiming for a full twenty-four hours. Then I can die happy. Or whatever it is we do, since, technically, we're already sorta dead."

"You know, you barely dodged a bullet when you popped up over the couch," Riku chuckled, climbing over the back of the couch with his glass and heading to the sink. "If I hadn't interrupted, he would've definitely called you something nasty."

The slightly smaller vampire smiled, biting on his lower lip. "Thanks, Riku. I'm not sure if it was fully intentional or not, but you've kept my dream alive." He wrapped his surprisingly strong arms around Riku, pinning the silver-haired vampire's arms to his sides and making it very hard for him to finish rinsing out his red-tinged glass. "I love you…"

"The feeling is mutual, just with less emphasis on physical contact," Riku said awkwardly, trying to maneuver around the kitchen with the mulleted vampire still latched around him.

"Aw… but I was watching this human show on the TV earlier, and apparently hugging is this kind of therapeutic thing. Do you think Roxas needs a hug?" Demyx asked seriously, releasing Riku just enough to lean back and get a good look at his face as he answered.

"I think," the taller vampire said slowly, licking his pointed teeth thoughtfully, "that if you value your limbs, digits, and hair-- especially your hair-- you will refrain from approaching Roxas with outstretched arms. He's going through a rough period right now."

"Why?"

"He's dealing with feelings that I'm pretty sure he thought were dead to him."

The sandy-spiked vampire nodded sagely. "That means he _really_ needs a hug."

"No, no… no hugs for Roxas. I actually like having you around," Riku smiled, patting the emotionally-open vampire on his mowhawked head.

* * *

"So… this is patrolling?" Riku raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips, looking unimpressed. He twirled the rough-hewn stake in his hands as they paced between rows of hedge-lined headstones and raised graves.

"Yes. This is patrolling."

"Very… fun," the vampire said hesitantly, scanning the seemingly abandoned graveyard and clicking his tongue. "Very exciting. I can feel the blood just coursing through my veins. Adrenaline."

Sora grunted, sniffing as he wrapped his scarf a little tighter around his neck, pulling the multi-colored, knitted fabric up around his ears.

"It goes, 'Woosh, woosh' through my arteries, and 'fwoo, fwoo' through my heart. I just may have a heart attack from the exhilaration. Calm me down, Slayer, please, before my body gives out under all this physical and emotional strain."

"You know, Riku, there're probably no vampires around because they hear _you_ running at the mouth from a hundred feet away and flee, which makes me question whether you're really here to help me, or whether you're working for the other team." Sora rolled his eyes at the vampire's pretend offended-scoff. "Just calm down. Things have been slow for the last few nights. Makes me think a big bad is a-brewin'."

"Don't be so paranoid," the other said exasperatedly. "Just be happy you're getting a break from potentially lethal encounters." Riku groaned as he flipped his stake up a few feet into the air and caught it on the way down, over and over. "But seriously, this is the most boring few hours I've gone through in the last week, which is saying a lot, cause I stayed in the last few nights and had nothing to do but play Wii against my brothers and help Leon replace all the bulbs in our apartment with these damn eco-friendly things that Demyx made us buy. Anyway, my point is, we need to do something exciting and blood-pumping. I suggest sex."

Sora blushed a vivid shade of scarlet, suddenly feeling warm despite the weather. He was caught off-guard by the suggestion and entirely unsure of how to handle the situation. He figured the best solution was to pretend the vampire had never proposed such a thing. "Jesus Christ, Riku. Do you ever stop talking?"

Riku shook his head somewhat cheerfully. He enjoyed teasing the young human whenever he got the chance. "Not really. Lately, without all the… you know…" He half-shrugged at the cinnamon-haired boy, looking abashed and clearly hoping the Slayer would fill in the blanks so he wouldn't have to outright say it. "Without all the murdering and torturing and stuff," he whispered almost inaudibly, as if saying it softly somehow made it less offensive and horrible, "talking is one of the few things that distinguishes me from the dead things that are still buried and non-mobile. I'm iffy on the whole 'reason-for-being' thing lately, because previously it was causing havoc and hunting humans-- you in particular, actually-- and now it's _not_ doing those things, and so far talking and semi-stalking you have become the two main goals, slash distractions, of my un-life."

"Oh. Really," the Slayer mused, trying to hide the surprise of Riku's semi-stalking habit. He had a major case of the wiggins right now, especially as he pondered over all the times recently that he'd felt he was being watched. He was at a loss for words, his hands slowly spinning the stake as he struggled for something to say. "Wow. That's… I'm sorry, I can't keep… I have to ask. What _exactly_ is 'semi-stalking'? What does that entail? Cause if you've been looking through the frosted glass of my bathroom window, I will be forced to stake you and then go buy some curtains, which I cannot afford, as you should know, Mr. Stalker."

"Oh, no," Riku laughed, waving his hands dismissively. "I would never-- no, that's ridiculous. I know there are boundaries."

"Thank God for tha--"

"I just look into the bedroom while you're asleep, and the kitchen… sometimes the laundry room-- to make sure you're safe, of course. Nowhere where you're naked. Except for that one time you changed in the laundry room, which was totally unexpected and completely out of my control and therefore not my fault at all."

Sora gaped. "You kept looking?"

"You only went down to your underwear," Riku said in his defense, though his slightly disappointed expression did nothing to help his case.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa-- that is besides the point, vamp," Sora said admonishingly, one finger pointed at the vampire while he struggled to shield his body with the other, curling in on himself as he irrationally tried to hide from Riku's prying eyes. The knowledge that the vampire had seen him next to naked made him blush furiously, and every time Riku looked at him now he felt stripped, even with heavy winter clothing on. "No more of that, you hear? I'll have none of it. Promise me. Swear it."

The vampire sighed, his shoulders slumping heavily. "Fine, fine. I swear not to peek in on you anymore," he mumbled, his fingers firmly crossed behind his back. _'As if.'_

They trudged in silence, kicking up cold earth as they both dragged their feet along. Riku continued to play with his stake, inhaling sharply as he only barely caught it one time, narrowly avoiding a potential self-staking disaster.

Sora figured now was as good a time as ever. He made firm his resolve to dive headfirst into the uncomfortable, possibly volatile conversation that he'd been putting off since his reunion with Riku earlier that night. "So, uh, tell me about Roxas."

"Roxas?" Riku hesitated, his eyes focused straight ahead of him. "Why do you want to know about him?"

"Because he sexually assaulted my best friend. And battered him. And maybe some other stuff, too. I'm not really sure, 'cause Axel didn't feel like talking about it. Not that I can blame him."

Riku was speechless for the first time in a while. _'Arrrg… I hate you, Roxas. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you--'_

"Riku?" Sora's brows were raised concernedly.

"Hm?"

"About Roxas?"

"Oh, right. Well, I can't control what he does. He's stubborn and strong-willed. Don't blame me."

Sora's eyes narrowed. "I'm not blaming you. I just want to know if I need to be worried about him trying to hurt Axel again, or worse."

Riku cringed, not liking the conversation. "Don't… Roxas won't kill him. I know that much."

"How?"

"Because he likes him. He doesn't want to admit that, but it's pretty obvious. If you knew him like I do… he's taken some pretty unusual action concerning the redhead. He's not treating him like he usually treats humans."

"What? So you're saying he's usually _worse_ to people? Ax could barely sit or walk! I had to clean and bandage all the cuts that he couldn't reach for him, Riku," Sora said angrily. "Don't tell me that was Roxas being gentle."

The vampire cringed again. "It was. It is. Believe me, the bartender is lucky. Much, much worse could have happened to him. Roxas definitely went overboard, but he's less of a threat to your friend than most of the visitors his bar gets, simply because of the weird attachment Roxas has to him now."

"I doubt that." Sora huffed, his breath freezing into a little cloud. "But… I guess I have to give him an ounce of credit. He did bring Axel back to his apartment all wrapped up in a comforter. That was decent."

Riku was surprised for a moment-- it hadn't occurred to him that the redhead would assume Roxas had been the one to bring him home. After a moment's consideration, he gave the Slayer a reassuring smile. "See? He's not all bad."

"Not _all_, but still a lot. If Axel complains about him even once," the Slayer said softly, "I'll have to do _something_, Riku. I can't stand by while my friend gets abused. Honestly, I'd be on my way to confront him now if I wasn't so damned optimistic about the fact that he at least cared enough to bring Axel home and make sure he was warm and stuff. I really hope that means something, like he's willing to treat Axel better, because I don't want to fight your family."

"I don't want you to fight them either," Riku admitted, feeling worried about this situation. Roxas was on thin ice, which put his relationship with the Slayer on thin ice as well. Thinner ice. The ice was not sturdy to begin with, and now his brother had taken to it with a blowtorch. "Whose side would I be on?" he joked.

"Your family's, obviously," Sora stated. "I wouldn't expect any different."

Riku swallowed. The last thing he wanted was to choose sides in a battle between the Slayer and his family, especially since that would almost certainly end badly for Sora. Roxas was strong, as was Leon, who would come to Roxas' defense in an instant and was unquestionably a match for the Slayer. "I'd rather not pick sides."

"Me either," Sora agreed with a sad smile. "But I'm just saying, I know who you'd pick if you had to. It's not like that upsets me. I know what having a family is like. You can't turn away from those kinds of bonds."

Riku settled for silence, unhappily aware of the truth in what Sora was saying. Maybe this was also part of why vampire culture was so geared against relationships with Slayers and hunters-- being torn between two embittered sides of a battle was not easy. "How about a less morbid and unpleasant topic?"

"I can do that," Sora nodded, sounding relieved. "Have you seen X-Men or X2: X-Men United?"

"Yes," the vampire lied, not entirely sure what 'X-Men' even was, though he thought it sounded like it was related to porn. He felt like he'd heard the name before.

"Which one did you like better, and why?"

'_Oh, shit.'_ Riku took a shot in the dark. "Uh, the first one, because the originals are always best. Sequels ruin a good franchise."

"Usually correct," Sora said with a nod, "but wrong in this case. X2 was totally better-- it expanded on the first one and was actually more impressive. Also, it had Nightcrawler. That pretty much instantly makes it better."

"Oh. Okay."

"No, you're supposed to argue why the first is still better. Not, 'oh, okay'."

"Oh. Well, the first one…" Suddenly it hit him: he remembered Demyx babbling about this a few nights ago. It wasn't just a movie, it was some kind of comic book! "I think it was just truer to the comics, and there's something more ambitious about it being the first. It's hard to explain." He watched the Slayer anxiously, hoping he wouldn't call BS.

"No, I understand. Axel said that, too, actually. 'If it had flopped, there would _be_ no X2. There was infinitely more pressure on the first film both to succeed and to please fans', or something."

Riku felt a sudden, unwanted surge of appreciation for the annoying redhead.

"Okay, your turn," Sora grinned.

"Um… solitaire on the computer or with real cards?"

"Oh, on the computer, most definitely. I don't think I can even remember how to do it with cards."

"Are you serious? That's ridiculous! This is why I hate computers! They ruin everything."

"I take it that means you're an old-fashioned deck of cards person?"

"Damn straight."

Sora laughed at the vampire's strong beliefs about cards and computers. He was funny when he didn't mean to be, strangely old-fashioned in some respects. The boy edged a little closer to Riku, hoping to block some of the gentle but chilly wind that was beginning to shake the leaves on the holly bushes and make Sora zip-up for warmth. They patrolled in an easy silence for a while, up and down each overgrown row, not a vampire or demon or zombie or icky beast in sight. While the lack of attacking was nice, Sora couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that that meant they were planning something, preparing for an extra big attack later.

Riku could tell the Slayer was getting closer in hopes of leeching body heat, and was sad that he had none to offer. Otherwise, he'd have scooped the Slayer up and held him until he was toasty warm. As he was now, physical contact would probably just make the boy even colder. He wished he'd thought to bring a hot pad for him, or something.

Sora searched for something to take his mind fully and completely off of the temperature. "So tell me, do vampires find stalking attractive or something? Is it vampire flirting?"

Riku shrugged. "I guess. We're a bit possessive, maybe a little nosy. It's always nice to know how the object of our attentions is faring, and what they're up to… and to make sure no one else is encroaching on our territory."

Sora snorted. "I am NOT your--"

"Yes, you are," Riku interrupted without pause, his thumb pressing the Slayer's lips shut mid-sentence. He continued to smile at the boy, dragging the pale thumb down his chin, the glassy white nail like a cold blade pressed against his skin. "Whether you like it or not, Slayer, it's clear that you are. Look, I… there's a reason you've been encountering so few vampires and demons-- all the ones that value their lives, limbs, and internal organs have heeded my warning and are keeping a respectable distance."

The short but heavy silence that followed gave Sora time to process the vampire's words and to achieve a level of indignant fury he hadn't thought was possible in the limited timeframe.

Sora slapped Riku's hand, needing a way to convey his sentiments while he prepared to berate the vampire. "What? You-I…Riku, this is my _job_, my destiny. If I don't control the amount of darkness and evil that's roaming around, innocent people suffer!"

"But when you fight that evil, _you_ suffer, and that's what I'm concerned with-- you."

"This isn't about me! Are you really that selfish? Sure, I'm safe, but little kids that sneak out at night aren't, and old folks that take out their trash aren't, and parents with children depending on them aren't-- I know what it's like to lose family, and my conscience won't let me sleep knowing that people are dying while I've got it easy. You'd let me abandon my post just so you don't have to be concerned about me getting hurt?" Sora's voice cracked, shifting from anger to sorrow in a single breath; a few tears, sparkling with reflected light from a nearby lamp, began to trail down his cheeks but were hurriedly wiped away. "I didn't ask for you to worry about me in the first place. I know I'm not perfect, and I'm not skilled or knowledgeable or strong like you, but I put my everything into fighting the monsters that want to hurt people, because I _care_, which is more than I can say about you."

Riku watched the Slayer turn abruptly and stalk off into the sparse woods that bordered the older, unkempt side of the graveyard. He fiddled with his stake, weighing the urge to follow his Slayer and keep him safe with the boy's reaction and obvious want to be alone.

'_Or away from _me_, at least,'_ Riku thought sullenly, thoroughly disappointed with himself.

It seemed his relationship with Sora was hit and miss; less hit and more miss, as of late. Two steps forward and one step back. Riku felt a guilt and shame he never wanted to admit to another person, living or dead. It wasn't a sensation he was used to. Sora's words had seemed all the more disbelieving and pained because he'd clearly expected more from the vampire-- Riku saw that in the boy's eyes, and he wished he hadn't-- and he was surprised to be let down.

"Stupid Slayer," he murmured, sniffing the air and somewhat reluctantly picking up and following Sora's scent, going less by sight and more by smell, almost on autopilot. "He should know me better than that. As if I'm the king of high moral expectations…"

What killed him, what hurt the most, was that he'd appealed enough to Sora for the boy to raise his hopes like that, to make him actually think that he, a vampire, was decent enough to function at normal human levels. The Slayer had really, _actually_ put some faith in him to respect human life, and he'd blown it. Apparently just not directly killing them wasn't good enough, anymore. He actually had to go out of his way to save humans that meant absolutely nothing to him now.

The bar was being raised.

"God, having to follow a moral compass _sucks_," the vampire hissed, picking up his pace as he entered the woods.

A few dead leaves still managed to cling to the stark trees, trembling in the breeze. Though Riku wasn't bothered by the temperature, he was aware of it, and he didn't like the Slayer being so far from home in such weather, and all alone to boot. Twice, Riku's eyes narrowed dangerously as he thought he'd detected the scent of other vampires, but each time it turned out to be a stale trail, days old and unthreatening.

It wasn't until he was well into the forested area that the Slayer's scent suddenly changed, growing strong and mingling with the smell of multiple vampires, six at least. Riku's nostrils flared as his upper lip curled into an infuriated snarl. Regardless of whether or not his decision to threaten other non-humans away from the Slayer had been a smart one, Riku did not like his authority as an older and stronger vampire being undermined, which was exactly what this group was doing by attacking Sora.

He leapt forward, clearing the woods in seconds, the scenery around him all but a blur as he narrowed in on a barren clearing where the scents and energies were focused. He burst through the tree-line, grabbing the first non-Sora body that his vise-like hands could reach; holding the other vampire's head firmly in his hands, Riku jerked upward, swinging the body over his head until he heard a snap. He twisted roughly, tearing the vampire's head from his broken neck, dropping the skull to the ground as it, and the body, turned to ash.

Sora, slightly scraped but mostly unharmed, paused to half-chuckle, half-gape at the silver-haired vampire's vehement display of strength before delivering a spine-snapping kick to a leather clad biker chick vampire that was wielding a wickedly designed battle-axe. As she stumbled around disoriented, Sora staked her and the last remaining vampire in one quick, fluid action.

"Well, thanks for showing up," the blood splattered boy said congenially, dusting himself off and inspecting his mild wounds. "I really appreciate you helping me out by taking care of one of the _seven_ vamps."

"I would've been here from the beginning if you hadn't been so upset earlier," Riku said defensively, kicking the stake he'd been hanging onto all night where it lay on the ground, dropped when he'd first arrived on the site. Stakes all reminded him of the Slayer, which was pissing him off at the moment.

"I didn't mean that to guilt you for not being here to defend helpless ol' me," Sora grinned, happily stooping to pick up the dusted vampire girl's axe and examine it. "I meant that you didn't even have to come. I handled them just fine by myself, and I could've done just as well if you hadn't shown up at all." Liking the weight and quality of the well-used axe, Sora put it over his shoulder and walked past Riku, heading back out the same way he'd come.

Riku's expression darkened; he turned slowly, shaking his head to dislodge the fine layer of dust that had settled there from the one vampire he'd decapitated. An unpleasant side-effect of dusting a vampire as they're in midair overhead, he figured. "So you can handle a few weak, untrained, inexperienced, and uncoordinated vampires. So what? Anything more and you'd have been struggling, or worse."

Sora shot the sulking vampire a hard, bitter look. "You don't know that. Why are you trying to bring me down? Maybe I'm not as weak as you say I am. Maybe you just said that so you could volunteer to train me and get some extra stalking in," he suggested sarcastically, cocking his head at Riku as he waited for an answer. He rubbed his upper chest gingerly, having taken a hard kick there that surely made an imprint of his crown-necklace on his skin.

"It's obvious that I had some personal motives for that, yes," he grated out in response, really getting the yearning to bite Sora's neck just to make him shut up, "but I was honest about you needing to work, and I'm not trying to belittle your accomplishments. Killing seven vampires that quickly is good for your level, but I've seen Slayers overtaken by swarms. Dozens of vampires, all mobbing you at once in a coordinated attack. Could you do that, Mr. I-dusted-seven-vamps-and-now-I'm-the-biggest-thing-since-sliced-bread?"

Sora sniffed, thoughtful. "It might be problematic," he conceded. He glanced up as he noticed Riku easing closer but made no objections.

The vampire raised his eyebrows. "Yes, and that worries me. I genuinely want you to get stronger, but I can't help you or train you or anything if you're dead, understand? I just wanted to make sure you stayed alive," he said softly, looking at the ground and watching their feet as they headed out of the woods. "I… I get worried."

"I get that." The Slayer sighed and swung the axe around lazily, watching it glint whenever a sliver of weak moonlight hit it. "But it's just not feasible. The Slayer slays, and that's all there is to it. I can't sit around, focused on building myself up, while people are dying every night. This isn't the sort of think that I can take a nice, leisurely break from, even if it would help in the long run. Evil never stops, so I can't either."

"So… you _don't_ want me to keep the beasties from attacking you? I just want to get that crystal clear before I take back the death threat that I put over your head," Riku said with thrown up arms, still a little baffled as to why anyone, the Slayer in particular, would turn down something that protected him from about ninety percent of all the baddies that wanted him dead.

"No. I'd prefer you cancel that, though I appreciate the thought behind it, kind of," the brunette said with a small smile. "It'd be nice every once in a while, on the nights that I take off from slaying to maintain my sanity. I wouldn't mind being able to relax sometimes, but it's just not good on an extended basis."

"Alright," the vampire sighed, putting his hands into the pockets of his navy slacks as he felt a cold wind coming on. It was an action he'd adopted from spending time immersed with humans, who found it suspicious when he was unresponsive to changes in the weather, and was now more habit than anything. He looked at Sora, expecting him to be shaking from the cold, but the Slayer was doing a remarkable job of hiding his shivering, his jaw clenched to stop even his teeth from chattering. "Are you cold?"

"Nah, I'm fine," he replied, his front shattered as his teeth began clattering together as soon as he opened his mouth. The human boy wrapped his arms around himself to keep warm, the wind biting through his worn jacket and the thin sweater underneath. Unfortunately, warm, bulky clothing did not make for good slaying.

"No you're not. Here, take my coat," the vampire offered, shrugging out of his thigh-length lambskin coat and holding it out toward the boy.

Sora looked at the warm, aged material longingly, tempted by its fluffy lining and the soft, weathered look of the pelt. "No. You keep it. I'm okay."

"Stubborn is more like it," Riku said under his breath, stiffly putting the coat back on. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Sora buckle in the face of a particularly strong, chilling gust. "I _am_ walking you home, though, whether you like it or not," the vampire added in a tone that left no room for argument.

"O-okay." Sora was too preoccupied with the wind chill to disagree. He could handle the cold alone well enough, but add in some unrelenting wind and it was a struggle to keep from turning into one of those wind-up sets of teeth with feet that chatter and bounce around. Sora hated those-- his old dentist had kept a shelf full of them in his examination room, so in his mind they were linked with trips to the dentist, which were always quite unpleasant. Of course, years later, after taking on the role of the Slayer, Sora had discovered that his childhood dentist was in reality a tooth-loving demon in disguise that occasionally took more than teeth from his patients; in retrospect, he felt that had been the cause of much of his unease about dentist trips. Even as a child, Sora knew he'd had a knack for telling who the bad people were, even if he couldn't explain why or how they were bad.

Riku escorted the shivering brunette home, taking him by the elbow and leading the way whenever cold or tiredness overtook the boy and made him drowsy and prone to stumbling or heading in the wrong direction. Not that the stumbling part was much surprise-- Riku had noticed, through dedicated hours of… _surveillance_, that Sora was not graceful, not by a longshot. Smooth, level floors were treacherous, and anything made of glass was a hazard. Only superior Slayer reflexes kept him from being a walking, talking accident. After half-hauling the nearly frozen Sora up the uneven porch stairs, the vampire leaned against the doorframe as the Slayer unlocked the door to the small, somewhat dingy house. "I take it I'm not invited inside?"

"Not on your life. Or lack thereof," the boy added as he stepped into the relative warmth of his home and sighed happily.

Riku saw the yellow glow leak out the open door and onto the porch as Sora turned on a lamp inside. Before shutting it for the night, he peeked his head out the door and spotted the vampire still leaning against the whitewashed boards around the entrance. "Thanks for leading me home, and for calling off your… death hit or whatever."

"You're welcome."

"Go home, Riku," Sora said flatly, in no mood to deal with a vampire peeking through his windows as he undressed tonight.

"As you wish," the silver-headed man said mischievously, giving the Slayer a mocking little bow as he left.

"I mean it, you deviant. If I see you lurking around my house, I'll buy a taser. And a pitbull. Maybe six! Maybe mutant ones! With three heads like Cerberus!" he shouted, continuously goaded on by Riku's apparent lack of concern-- he kept smiling and laughing at the Slayer's mounting threats.

"I guess I can't let you see me then, can I?" the vampire shouted back.

"Don't cross me, Riku! I have pepper spray handy. Dead or not, that stuff burns."

"I'll file that away right in here," he laughed, tapping the side of his silvery head. "'Don't mess with the Slayer's privacy, or he'll _pepper spray_ you'. Scary. Did you see me shiver just now?"

"If I could bottle sunshine, you'd be the first I'd use it on," Sora yelled, waving a menacing finger at the retreating form of the vampire. "You'd better hope Sunny D doesn't _really_ have the power of the sun, or you're toast next time, stalker!"

* * *

Axel had always kept a very strict rule about the types he served: do not fuck with them. When gorgeous incubi or succubi popped in, he brushed them off. When alluring faeries visited, he kept his distance. When the occasional rogue werewolf, or crafty warlock, or good-looking, mostly humanoid demon showed up with an interest in him, he made sure nothing ever came of their advances. Same with vampires. Flirting was fine and dandy, as long as it never led to anything more.

Now that rule had been blown to Hell and back, and he had the bumps and bruises to prove it.

He stood in the nipping cold air in the alley behind his place, fingering his keychain for the tiny key that unlocked the ice machine that he kept out here. He was grateful for the break from inside-- of course, no matter how many showers he took, or how hard he scrubbed, there was no way to get Roxas' scent completely off of him. It was in every cut and scratch and scrape he had. Sure enough, all it took was one vampire getting close and picking up the smell for the situation to snowball-- she soon saw the scar, and then more gathered round, eager to know what had happened to their bartender, all eyes looking curious and hungry.

The redhead shook his head as he unlocked and lifted the latch, scooping ice into a glass pitcher that he'd brought from inside. He finished locking up and turned back to the door, reluctant but resigned to go back in and face the crowd of patrons that kept trailing their nails on his arms and asking what it took to get a taste.

Axel didn't even flinch at the short, sunny-haired vampire that had appeared from darkness as silently and fluidly as smoke, blocking the doorway as seemed to be his habit.

"Hey." The bartender sniffed and rubbed at his bright nose; he wasn't dressed for the cold, only meaning to step out for a moment. Roxas wasn't dressed for the cold, either, but it was apparent that it didn't affect him in the slightest.

"You're an idiot. What kind of enterprising businessman leaves his register and building unattended like that?"

"The kind that doesn't particularly care if they take the fucking money so long as it means they get out with it and leave me alone, because I'm tired of near-strangers pestering me for blood and sexual favors. Was I delicious? Cause everyone seems to be acting like I'm the goddamn flavor of the month right now."

Blue eyes narrowed, sparkling with something distinctly lethal. "They're doing _what_?" the vampire half-laughed, his mouth parted in mixed disbelief and wrath. "I _marked_ you--"

"What?" A few ice cubes clinked onto the concrete as the vampire pressed up against Axel, the pitcher of ice jostled as it was caught between the two bodies.

"I marked you," Roxas repeated quietly and matter-of-factly, brushing his chilly fingers against the faded scar on Axel's neck. "You're mine. I went to great lengths to ensure that it was obvious that you belonged to someone, and those little know-nothing fledglings think they can pry you out from under me? I don't think so. Clearly, this town has been far too long without an authoritative vampire figure. Leon's a _slacker_. Well, one good flaying ought to show them to their place," the vampire said with a smile, turning on his heel and opening the back door.

"Whoa, hey, let's talk about this," Axel gushed as he followed Roxas inside, pausing only to close the door behind him. "There doesn't have to be a flaying, yeah? How about a stern lecture? Or… make them stand with their faces in the corner? That'll show 'em," the redhead suggested, putting a hand on Roxas' shoulder and spinning him around, hoping to deter him from walking through the store room door and into the bar. The last thing his business needed was an angry, overly possessive vampire flaying his bar's visitors, even if they were annoying. "My old history teacher made us draw a circle on the chalkboard and then stand there with our nose stuck in it. Didn't really work on me, because I was a mischievous brat with no respect for authority-- especially when it came to school-- but we could give it a shot here, right?"

"Oh, bartender. You're so… human." The statement sounded moderately disgusted, though it seemed Roxas had meant it in an 'oh, how endearing' way. The vampire removed Axel's hand from his shoulder and placed it at the lanky man's side. "Always acting like a little violence is a bad thing, always trying to stop death from happening… You're so optimistic. You'd even stick up for some weakling who'd just as soon flip you over onto your own counter and drink every last drop out of every last vein in your body."

Axel leaned against a tall box that was nearby, already feeling drained by the small vampire with corn-colored hair. "Please don't. I know you won't listen to me, but it can't hurt to ask, right? Don't do it?"

Roxas didn't move, his slightly glowing, feral eyes trained on the redhead. In the half-dark of the storeroom, it was difficult for Axel to tell what the vampire was thinking-- not that he was ever that easy to understand to begin with, honestly.

Roxas gestured for Axel to come to him, and the redhead obeyed, sluggishly moving within the small vampire's reach. He felt cold hands direct him to the door and then nudge him through.

Once Axel was back inside the warm glow of the bar, he glanced covertly over his shoulder, surprised to see that Roxas had not followed. As soon as he got behind the counter an especially voracious young vampire grabbed a hold of both of his shoulders, pulling his slender upper body roughly over the counter. Another hand, soft, with long, red-lacquered nails, firmly covered his mouth. A few demon bikers seated at a nearby table looked up to see if the situation was out of control, and then, deciding the bartender's life wasn't in _immediate_ danger, went back to playing cards.

The vampire that was gripping him smiled to show off glossy white fangs. He flipped shiny, blue-black hair out of his face and pressed his mouth to the side of Axel's face, startling the young man. The vampire's partner, a sultry blonde joined in, kissing the other side of the bartender's face. The redhead tried to move, to wiggle out of the vampire's grasp. When that failed, he tried hitting and squeezing and clawing at his bare arms. Neither of the vampires took any notice of his escape attempts, each one holding him still as they both trailed their tongues over his cheeks and jaw.

Finally, the male whispered heavily into Axel's ear, making the redhead shift uncomfortably. "See? Foolish human. You thought it was good with just one vampire. How about the two of us? We could do much better than whatever did _this_ to you," he chuckled, touching a tender spot on Axel's shoulder where a deeper cut was still healing. "You won't regret it. We'll even turn you afterwards, no strings attached."

There was a loud clink from the other end of the countertop. Far beyond the small mass of vampires that were crowded around Axel sat Roxas, watching the redhead's predicament and impatiently strumming his fingers on the polished surface. The sunny blonde picked up a weighty, empty glass and clanked it on the counter again, looking annoyed. "Hurry up, bartender. I haven't got all night." He shot a withering look at the two who were holding onto Axel and they immediately released him, looking unnerved.

Axel took his long sleeves to the sides of his face, rubbing furiously. "Nasty," he mumbled as he walked over to Roxas.

"It's about time."

"I was _slightly_ impeded. In case you didn't notice."

"Oh, I noticed, all right. I noticed what could have been avoided if you had just listened to me and not thrown a fit over one little flaying."

"I didn't throw a _fit_-- mmmmrrrmmmph!"

Axel tried to scream as the vampire pulled him into a deep kiss, frustrated at the turn his night was taking. He'd had enough of vampire tongues for tonight, even if Roxas' was coolly pleasant.

The blonde was suffocating him, plain and simple. He tugged on the redhead's hair roughly, never giving him a chance to breathe or a break from the gnashing fangs that occasionally nicked his tongue or lip. The man started to feel lightheaded and woozy; his knees felt like jelly, so he leaned against the counter for support, struggling to stay focused. The last thing he wanted to do was pass-out or collapse in a room full of vampires and demons and perhaps a werewolf or two.

Roxas gave the redhead's mouth one last sweep, smiling as he tasted blood, and then let him go.

Axel sucked in a huge breath, as thirsty for air as he would have been if he'd spent the last minute at the bottom of an Olympic sized swimming pool. He half-collapsed on the countertop, exhausted from tonight, both physically and mentally. All these vampires were messing with his health.

Roxas spun around slowly on his barstool, crossing his legs as he triumphantly faced the small crowd of young, rambunctious vampires. They quailed under his look, unmistakably sensing that he was older, stronger, and not to be taken lightly.

"This one," he announced tonelessly, patting Axel's head softly, "is no longer up for grabs. While I felt quite certain that the marks I left on him were enough to broadcast that fact, it's come to my attention that the local vampire population is either too stupid to comprehend a basic method of claiming territory, or so flippant about our hierarchy and customs that you live like lawless rats, willfully snatching at what does _not_ belong to you." He looked pointedly at the two that had so brazenly accosted the human bartender.

"It's only because of his wish that I don't harm you that I don't skin half of you insolent little brats alive here and now, so be grateful. And know that if you ever lay a single finger on him, I _will_ find out, and I _will_ hunt you down and rip out your spine, along with any other interior parts that I can reach. Now get out."

Young vampires fell over each other in their rush for the door, snarling and cursing as they jostled through the narrow opening. A few of the older demons and undead snickered at their panic, joyfully watching them scramble for the exit over while sipping tall mugs of beer.

Now finished with his speech, Roxas turned back to the bar and slid the empty glass into Axel's hand, which was lying limply on the counter as he stared, open-mouthed, at the blonde vampire. "I want bourbon."

"What was that?" Axel asked, dumbfounded.

"What was what? I don't like sharing, that's all. I'm keeping others' hands off of you."

"You didn't kill anyone, or even maim them…"

"So?"

"So? So you actually listened to me and acknowledged _my_ opinion-- mine!-- and even went along with it." The redhead smiled ridiculously, gleefully reaching underneath the counter for the bottle of bourbon. "I'm just shocked, stunned, flabbergasted, confounded, floored, astonished, and surprised about it. That's all."

"You're extra annoying when you're happy," Roxas moaned, massaging his temples and glaring at the young redheaded man. "Right now you're just giving me more incentive to ignore your will entirely and deliberately cause you pain at every turn."

Axel ignored his comment. "Thanks for not killing anyone," he grinned as he placed the full glass in front of the vampire. "Not only was I against it 'cause it seemed wrong and would hurt my business, but also because I just did a deep cleaning of this place and didn't want to be scrubbing up blood and dust all night."

Roxas' eyes flicked to the dusty upper shelves and the grimy sink and the sticky floor, which looked as though some slime demon had dripped mucus all over it and then smeared it around with his foot in an effort to hide it. "This is what 'deep clean' looks like to you?"

"Hey, if there's no big chunks lying around, then it's clean enough."

Not for the first time that night, Roxas wondered if he'd made a mistake in letting Axel live.

* * *

"If the Slayer wanted-- for some inexplicable reason, y'know-- to become a vampire, would you do it?"

Demyx was sprawled out on his stomach, his head cradled in his hands as he sat up on his elbows. He looked up at Riku, who was sitting cross-legged on the countertop between the kitchen and the living room, waiting for his answer with nothing but curiosity and genuine interest.

"I don't know," the older vampire said with an unsure look. "I mean… I want to. If he asked, I'd do it in a heartbeat, because then I wouldn't have to fret over him getting mauled or killed by the age of twenty. Not to mention, I'd get to see the first Slayer-turned-vampire, which would be colossally amazing."

"Yeah, that's true. But what about the killing and stuff? I don't think a Slayer could handle killing the people they gave so much to protect, not in the long run, and maybe not even in the short run."

Riku gazed at Demyx, who was much more observant than Roxas-- or any of them, really-- gave him credit for. "Yes. That would be a problem. He'd never be happy. Which is why I don't really know what I'd do anymore," he said softly, shrugging one shoulder in agitation at his lack of decisiveness. "I used to think that if he ever got seriously hurt and was dying, I'd just turn him, and it would be the perfect solution to everything. Selfish, wasn't I? I found out today that I'm selfish quite often."

"You're not that bad," Demyx said softly, smiling as he picked at loose threads in the carpet. "Everyone's a little selfish sometimes," he said with a shrug. "But you look out for us, and you'd do anything for the people you care about."

"Unless it conflicted with my own happiness, probably," he muttered bitterly.

"Naw," the peaceful vampire disagreed, shaking his head so that the dirty blonde mowhawk flopped around. After a few moments of silence, he sighed. "I wish more vampires could be like me," Demyx murmured. "And make it, you know? Then there wouldn't be so much fighting with the werewolves, and the Slayer, and other vampires, and humans…"

Riku smiled at the younger boy, undeniably a little jealous of him. He was tired of fighting off cravings for human blood, of pushing down the swelling urge to kill just for the sake of killing. He couldn't count the number of times each night that he doubled over with yearning to massacre something, anything, animal or human.

When Riku was young and still living with his sire, Leon had occasionally played host to other old vampires. He recalled the stories they told, of exotic demons and werewolf treachery and vampire folklore. He remembered in particular the stories of vampires who repressed their instincts and desire to kill, starving the demonic spirit within and going mad. He wasn't sure how much of the tales was truth and how much was just intended to keep the young from trying to change their appetites and behaving unnaturally, but Riku was definitely starting to feel the ring of truth to the whole 'going mad' part.

And here was Demyx, who'd inexplicably never even had the need to kill and had shunned human blood from the first. He was unnatural by every vampire standard, a rarity and a freak, and Riku was starting to wish he'd turned out the same.

"You know what I was just thinking, Riku?" the boy asked from the floor, rolling over onto his back and moving as if he were making snow angels on the rug.

"What?"

"This is called a living room, but since we're not alive, wouldn't it be an _un_-living room?" Demyx burst into laughter at his own joke, rolling from side to side as he chortled. "Liv-living room, _un_-living room… Get it, Riku? Do ya get it? AN UN-LIVING ROOM! Oh gosh, that was good." He wiped at the corner of one of his large green eyes, where red tears had started to collect.

"You're comic genius, Demy. Pure gold, twenty-four-seven." Riku shook his head as he laughed at the younger vampire. He unfolded his legs and stretched them out, letting them hang down from the counter. He'd more or less stolen a pair of incredibly comfortable sweatpants from Leon and had taken to wearing them around the house. Unfortunately, they were a few inches too long, intended for someone with Leon's height, and had caused a few near spills for Riku whenever he crossed the smooth floors. Thank goodness for the lightning fast reaction times that came with being one of the cursed undead.

"I only asked because it's something Zexion wants me to do," Demyx said suddenly, his voice completely somber now.

"The human you like?" Riku asked for clarification.

"The human I _love_," he corrected, smiling widely at the elder vampire. "But… I've seen how all the other fledglings turn out. They're not… like me. They want to kill and hurt people as soon as they're out of the ground." Demyx struggled as he spoke, having difficulty with understanding the behavior of others his age. "They don't care about humans, or even other vampires, most of the time. I love Zexion, and I don't want to do something that could make him like that. I _can't_ do it, because he wouldn't be _him_ anymore. He'd be a stranger. Not my Zexy."

Riku grimaced and twined his fingers together, not sure of what to say.

"But… at the same time, I know that if I don't, he'll die eventually, like all the other humans. I don't know if I can handle being immortal while my partner isn't. Seeing him growing old, while he sees me never changing… outliving him." The mowhawked vampire buried his head in his arms.

Riku slid from the counter and came to sit beside the younger vampire. He brushed over the fuzzy, sandy colored spikes that jutted up in a row down the center of his head. "Between a rock and a hard place, huh? A 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' situation. We seem to get into those a lot."

"He doesn't have to make this kind of choice. He just keeps asking, because he wants to be like me, and be with me forever, but he doesn't _understand_ what it means, or what he'll be giving up. Sunlight, his humanity, his friends and family… maybe his soul? I don't know if we even have souls. How can I do that to someone I love?"

"… Maybe this question would be better suited for Leon."

Demyx stiffened at the suggestion. No one knew this feeling better than Leon, but still… it was so painful for him, even today. Demyx knew there wasn't a day their sire didn't think about what had happened to the people he loved and tried to bring with him into vampirism. The scar that the Palliata had put across his face ensured that, as did the ones all over his body. It didn't help that Leon was a brooder. Always brooding over this and that, looking all sad and contemplative.

Demyx liked it when Leon was with them, his kids, or out interacting with people. Then he wasn't so broody. He smiled, and talked, and expressed emotions, which was better than what he did the rest of the time: sitting in his room and sleeping or daydreaming.

"Yeah. Maybe I'll ask Leon." Demyx peeked up at his older brother, thankful. "And y'know what? I don't think you're a monster, Riku, just in case you ever thought that. I never did. Not even while you were doing terrible things. Everyone else just saw that cruel side of you, but I saw you at home. You didn't understand the way I acted, or how I could live without killing humans, but you still cared about me. You were the best family I had, you and Leon. Better than my own parents were. You did so many things that I disagreed with and thought were horrible and wrong, but I could tell you had the same thing that's in me inside you. It was just deeper down."

"Is that so?" Riku said flatly, looking down at his hands.

"Yeah. It just took a while for you to realize it and change. I guess the Slayer was the catalyst for that? Him and those dreams you had about him?" Demyx shrugged as Riku remained unresponsive. "Sometimes family knows you better than you do yourself."

Riku stayed silent, his eyes roaming the floor, and his feet, and the torn material of the other vampire's acid-washed jeans.

Demyx crawled onto his knees and leaned in against Riku, kissing him on the cheek. "You're not an evil person, Riku."

His head lifted at the sound in Demyx's voice; he was surprised to see the younger vampire on the verge of tears, dark red liquid welling along his lower lashes.

"You're not. You're strong enough to face the demon inside you and fight it off, which is more than can be said for most other vampires. And probably a good number of humans, too." He cupped the more mature vampire's face in his hands, making him look up. "I'm really proud of you, and really glad I have you for a brother."

After a brief hug, Demyx stood and smoothed out his flannel shirt and then slowly headed down the hall. He knocked on Leon's door and, after a few moments of waiting, was let inside.

Riku slumped, letting his head loll back against the couch. _'As if the pressure not to fall off the wagon wasn't great enough before…'_

* * *

"This is going to sound weird," Axel opened with, raising his hands in warning to the brown-haired teen, "and I completely give you the authority to pinch me, or yourself, or whoever it takes to convince you that what I'm saying is indeed true."

"Duly noted," Sora nodded over his milkshake.

After a rough day of quizzes, labs, and bullies at school, the redheaded bartender had offered to take his younger friend out for the best feel-good food of all time: ice cream. What was even better was that, with the weather outside a nippy thirty degrees, they had the ice cream store almost entirely to themselves.

"Okay. Alright, yeah," Axel said as he dug into his chocolate strawberry sundae, pumping himself up. "So… y'know how Roxas and I did the dirty, only it was mostly him attacking me with these bite-kiss combos?"

"Mmhmm," Sora acknowledged, staring at his bowl of fudge-topped vanilla darkly.

"Oh, hey, don't give your ice cream the death glare. It didn't do anything wrong," the thin man said in defense of the dairy that Sora looked ready to murder. "Anyway, you don't have to worry, at least not for the moment."

"Why not?" Sora raised an eyebrow curiously as he licked his spoon clean of any and all hot fudge.

"Well, he showed up at my bar last night, and he was almost one-hundred percent stable and non-hostile. In fact, he saved me from these two vampires that were fully prepared to sex me and then vamp me, all while licking my face off in the process. Go figure," Axel said with a happy shrug. "He did kiss me, and it did hurt a little, but it wasn't… _bad_."

"This is weird. So… you _like_ the scary, rapey blonde vampire man?"

"Uh, no, not _like_. But he's not horrible. And I could, perhaps one day, far off into the future, possibly see us maybe getting together--"

"You like the scary, rapey blonde vampire man," Sora interrupted flatly, nodding in disbelief.

"I didn't say that."

"Your eyes said it," the Slayer said factually, taking an extra large Victory bite of his ice cream as Axel hung his head in defeat.

"Yeah… I'm kind of liking him. Curse you, overly expressive eyes of mine."

"S'not your fault you were born with eyes that are like a window to your soul," Sora said tonelessly as he dug around in his dessert. "But I can't believe you want to see that Roxas guy--"

"Well, I still can't believe that you're doing Slayer stuff with Riku, so I guess we're pretty much square now."

"Guess so," Sora said coolly, now stabbing at his half-melted ice cream.

"Yep." Axel spooned one large, frozen, chocolate-slathered strawberry into his mouth, munching away on it in silence.

Sora finally burst, unable to keep himself silent by overdosing on ice cream any longer. "Holy crap, Axel, d'you think you could have maybe mentioned some of this before I totally bitched out Riku for what his brother did? That conversation was an entire city of awkward and uncomfortable and touchy. It was Awkward Central. It was Uncomfortable-ville. It was Touchy Town."

"I'm sorry," Axel half-shouted. " I didn't really think about it until late last night! I was slightly shell-shocked for those first few days, okay? Alright?"

"Yeah. I can totally understand why you'd be willing to get involved with someone who left you _shell-shocked _after one night of sex," the brunette said sarcastically. "Sex should not do that to your mind. I paid attention in health ed. That is an unhealthy relationship."

"The only people I know are dead or kill things or both! All of my relationships are unhealthy, don't you think?"

There was a loud cough to their left, from behind the counter. The owner, busy counting bills at the register, was giving them odd looks.

Axel dropped his voice down to a whisper. "I know you and Riku aren't all platonic. You wouldn't put up with his vampire shit if you didn't have some sort of crush on him. You think here, not here," the redhead stated, pointing to Sora's heart and brain in turn. "You trust him because of what your emotions tell you, not because of what your mind says. You can rationalize it all day long, I know you can," Axel said, raising his voice slightly as he saw Sora opening his mouth to argue, "but all those explanations and justifications are just to backup your feelings for him. If your gut told you he wasn't worth it, you'd ditch him in a second, no matter what rationale said it'd be useful to stay with him. But your gut says, 'Oooh, Riku, you so sexy! Teach me, train me, kiss me--'"

"It does not say that," the teen said with a telltale blush covering his cheeks.

"Oh, yes it does. You can read my eyes, and I can hear your gut. We would make a great superhero duo. End of argument."

With that, the lanky redhead stood and carried his nearly empty plastic bowl to the trash can and dumped it, and then proceeded outside, leaving the teenaged Slayer to finish his melted vanilla. Even though he should have long ago outgrown this mentality, Sora still thought of every spoonful of melted ice cream as medicine, just as he always had as a child. He ate every last bit, somberly scraping the bowl clean of hot fudge and whatever vanilla that still clung to the sides.

* * *

**I've actually gotten really into this story recently, which is why it's getting so much more attention than the others. I'm hoping to finish a big chunk of Blue Moon (if not all of it) before working on Musica or Runner. I'm looking forward to the next two chapters in particular. Big changes are afoot. Big life/romance/relationship altering changes. **

**Sunny D. Yeah. I hate the stuff (same with Kool-aid), largely due to the ridiculous commercials where sunlight (or the "power of the sun", or whatever) bursts free from under the cap. Same with Kool-aid and the giant pitcher-man. So that's the reference Sora made, in case anyone didn't know? I haven't seen any Sunny D commercials on in a while, and I don't know if they're using the same slogan, so there's the explanation…**

**Enough babble, I guess. Review please? It makes me like this, :D, not like this, DX.**


	8. Vilkacis

**Tada! I'm sorry it's so long. I planned on putting a few certain things in this chapter, and it just kind of… expanded. ****This is the longest yet, I think.**

"_Tell all my mourners_

_To mourn in red--"_

_-- Langston Hughes, Wake_

* * *

"Did your little pet come back yet?" the lithe blonde asked smugly, leaning against one of the frozen marble pillars and crossing her arms. Her black robes swished around her from the movement. "That caecus demon. The one you spent _so_ long training to do reconnaissance?"

She had no qualms about entering Vexen's area of the castle; there were very few places Larxene was afraid to go, and very few whose privacy or territory she respected, even among the Palliata. Vexen was older yet less formidable-- passive aggressive, preoccupied with his intellectual fancies, lacking her cunning and hand-to-hand ability and penchant for bloody, messy violence-- and therefore an easy and entertaining game.

The ashy blonde vampire paused as he flipped through a large and ancient text, looking up in thinly veiled agitation as she once again intruded into his workspace. "I think you're already aware of that experiment's status."

"Hm?" she asked, her eyes wide in exaggerated surprise. "You mean the Slayer _killed_ it? Oh no," she muttered worriedly, covering her smirking mouth in pretend shock as she agilely crossed the frozen floor to reach Vexen's desk. She stretched her upper body across it, leaning close to the Palliata's scientist. "But that would mean you severely misjudged the Slayer and mislead Xemnas, wasting _his_ time and _your_ resources. I'm sure he's not pleased with that. You assured him that the Slayer was too young and untrained to even notice your domesticated demon, much less slay it. What method of punishment is he using on you?"

"That's hardly any of your business," the older vampire said stiffly, sliding on a pair of antique glasses as he resumed tenderly turning rune-covered pages, scanning them for anything that would aid in his experimenting. "And the caecus demon's failure was just a minor setback. Xemnas has already sent at least one assassin to verify the rumors we've been hearing about and eradicate the Slayer as well, just in case they are true."

"An _assassin_? I didn't think he would take this so seriously. Or that he would resort to hired help so soon." Larxene raised thin yellow eyebrows in a surprised yet pleased manner and slowly slid back from Vexen, standing and gathering herself gracefully. "I wonder if he'll decide to go ahead and remove Leon's boy as well, since he seems to have developed a… _taste_ for the Slayers now. Can't have any more of _that_, can we?" she asked with a sweet smile. "Might as well get a two-for-one deal while we're at it. Anyway, Lexaeus asked me to tell you that we've just had a group of humans brought in," she said as she walked away, tip-toeing over the patches of ice that tended to form on the granite floor here in the basement. "If you would like to choose a few for your experiments, you would be wise to do it soon. I'll be upstairs playing with them in the meantime."

She gave him a wink and a cold smile over her shoulder before turning down the hall.

* * *

"Ah, teeth, teeth, teeth, teeth, _teeth_," Axel warned, gritting his own teeth as the vampire broke the skin at the base of his neck again, lapping up the spilled blood like a thirsty animal. "The _teeth_. Watch them, dammit."

"Mmm, you watch them." Roxas groaned against his long, pale neck. He kept one knee forcefully jabbed against Axel's abdomen, pinning the redhead against the ancient, sagging La-Z-Boy recliner as he straddled him.

"I'm not the one that keeps biti-- damn you, can't you listen? That hurts!"

"It's supposed to hurt."

"Oh, really?"

"If sex doesn't hurt a little, you aren't doing it right."

"Well this hurts a _lot_."

"Wimp."

"Jerk."

"Oh, shut up. You're so much more attractive when you're not speaking," the vampire growled, pressing the man further down into the overstuffed recliner and eagerly working down his shoulder to his chest, pushing away the tattered remains of Axel's shirt as he did. "You have, mmmp… hideous taste in furniture," Roxas complained in between planting kisses on the Axel's upper body. "Absolutely… mmm… wretched in here… you decorate like you're visually impaired."

"We can talk about my impaired sense of style some other time, you kno-OW! Hey! That is a sensitive area, and therefore requires a sensitive touch!"

"_You're_ too sensitive. All over."

"Am not."

"Yes, you are. Now stop being a defensive idiot and focus on the task at hand. I'm tired of always doing all the work."

"First of all, we've only done this three times now-- oh, ow, ow-- and secondly, you barely _let_ me do anything. You're a control fre--Ahhhk…" Axel whimpered quietly as Roxas bit him hard _again_. "And you bite too much. I'm all for trying new things, but this is painful and a little bit scary, what with your, uh, condition and all. Also, I want to be on top all of the time from now on."

Roxas paused, halfway done with removing the redhead's jeans. He snorted loudly and then laughed. "Maybe when you can prove to me that you can _handle_ being on top every time. For now, we keep taking turns. Be happy that I allow you that much responsibility."

Axel sighed irritably and crossed his arms like a petulant child. "I don't like being on the bottom."

Roxas feigned interest and concern at the comment. "Oh, so that's how you feel? You don't like it? Well, I guess it's a good thing that I don't care," he spoke softly, giving him a shrug as he ripped the man's pants clean off of his legs with one quick pull. "Now carry me into your bedroom, which I dearly hope isn't as God-awful and outdated as your poor excuse for a living room. And your sheets had better be clean, or you're going to pay to take me to a hotel again."

"No way!" the redhead objected as he compliantly lifted the smaller man into his arms and carried him to his room. "Hotel sheets are about a billion times worse than my sheets could ever be. That's why I laid out towels on the bed when we were there last time, duh. Have you ever taken a blacklight to those places? I don't like being rolling around on the bodily fluids of strangers. Those stains can only be one of three things, and they _usually_ aren't blood or urine, if you catch my drift."

"You're ruining the mood. Hurry up and fuck me before your rampant mouth drives me away," the vampire said as the tall man set him down on his bed, which, to the blonde's surprise, was neatly made and smelled clean. Everything in the small, cluttered room was a warm shade of red or ochre or burnt sienna, completely unlike the stark white and stainless steel of Roxas' own bed and room.

"Ah, but maybe that was my plan," Axel teased, his grin fading as a much-displeased Roxas glared at him from the bed. "I was kidding! Kidding, I say. Can you _never_ take a joke?" he asked as he crawled on top of the blonde, gently easing him back against the mattress.

"No, I can't," the vampire growled as he roughly pulled the redhead down for another kiss.

* * *

"So… how was school?"

"Sucked."

"Care to elaborate?"

"Not really," the teen said with a pout. "Just the normal stuff. Cloud helped a lot. He gave me donuts, cupcakes and a bag of astronaut ice cream. It was really delicious, if a _tad_ unhealthy. He's been in a really good mood lately, now that I think about it…"

"Wow. Well, I was going to offer to take you to that place with the cinnamon glazed pecans to kind of smooth things over between us, but I guess you've had your daily sugar allowance for like, three days. You want to hit that vegetarian place up on the corner and get celery and hummus?"

Sora shrugged. "Why not? But you need to get something more substantial," the brunette warned, pulling at the side of the redhead's narrow shirt to point out his thinness. "Are you not sleeping again? Not eating? Do I need to bake another cake?"

"Oh, God, no. Don't do that. Anything but that. Maybe some mashed potatoes. Or some bread pudding. Remind me to give you some of my Tupperware containers on the way back home."

"Technically, those containers are mine. I brought you food in them and you never returned them."

"Oh. Then the Tupperware is yours, not that it matters, since you'll just be returning them to me filled with starchy, fattening foods tomorrow."

Sora sighed as they entered the small restaurant, greeted by a chiming bell and a gust of warm air. "I forgot how small this place is," the brunette muttered as they slid into a booth next to a mirror covered wall that was clearly there to provide the illusion of a bigger space. It was actually rather convincing-- the first time they had come to this place, Sora had been distracted by a conversation and walked right into the wall, thinking the reflection was actually another dining room. Once again, his superhuman Slayer resilience had saved him from a mild concussion.

"So… how're things with Riku?"

"Oh. The usual. Training, patrolling, staking, sharing uncomfortable stories... We've got a rhythm down now. And he taught me how to decapitate dead things with my bare hands, which, I have to admit, is pretty cool."

"Uh…" Axel found decapitation to be not-so-cool, and he hoped his expression made that clear to the Slayer. "That's great?"

"We haven't exactly been doing as much talking lately, outside of the slaying related stuff, which I guess is good, cause it leads to less awkward moments and less of him reminding me about all the people-eating he's done." The teen put down his menu and cleared his throat. "Speaking of people-eating, how's it going with Roxas?"

Axel nodded and smiled. "Nice, Sora. Nice. I see what you did there. Anyway, it's… going well." He grit his teeth together a little, not at all sure how to talk about this to Sora without causing another blow-up. Truthfully, Axel hated getting into arguments with the dark-haired boy-- it was practically hell to not be able to talk to him for any period of time over a day.

Although Roxas had been helping to distract him from that lately…

'_BINGO!' _Axel thought suddenly. "We had sex again last night, and look!" He pulled down his collar for the brunette to see. "No big bites or cuts. A few scratches and hickeys, but nothing compared to before. Also, he hasn't threatened to kill me or eat me or play beer pong with my eyes at all lately. That's an improvement. I _think_ I'm wearing him down." He folded his menu shut and set it down on the table in front of him. "We even sat down the night before last and just talked for a while. It was… strange and interesting, but not unpleasant."

"Beer pong? I didn't think a vampire like him would even know what that is. He's kind of… snooty."

"Oh, well, I kind of just threw that one in there. What he actually said was more along the lines of, 'If you don't stop talking to me about your feelings, I'll pull out those eyes of yours and feed them to the deformed pigeons that are always flapping around on your fire escape and pooping on everything', but I didn't feel like saying all that, so I just said the first thing that popped into my head."

Sora squinted and shifted. "I'm not sure which I find more disturbing-- your total lack of concern about a vampire threatening you like that, or the fact that _beer pong_ was the first thing you thought of. I know you work in a bar and all, but sti--"

"Oh, you know I'm a drunken fratboy at heart. Man, if only I'd gone to college," the older man sighed wistfully, absently spinning a salt shaker as he mused over what could have been.

"College?" Sora snorted. "How about, 'If only I'd graduated high school'? You gotta start with the basics, Ax."

"High school is stupid."

"I'm glad you think so, cause I'm thinking about dropping out," Sora said with a straight face. It was a complete lie-- Sora was never the kind of person to quit anything, no matter how difficult things got. He was no different when it came to school; still, he wanted to see Axel's reaction.

"Nuh-uh. Like hell I'm gonna let you screw up your future. You're actually smart, unlike me. Schooling is good for you." The redhead gave the teen a kick under the table. He tilted his head victoriously as the brunette gasped and rubbed his shin in disbelief. "There you go. That's for saying stupid shit like that."

"Ow. Jerk! I was just kidding," the brunette said sourly, pouting heavily. "But… I really _don't_ see the point. It's not like I'll be able to go to college or anything."

"Says who?" Axel asked aggressively, as if he would hunt down whoever had spoken those words and beat them senseless with any object over thirty-five pounds that happened to be nearby.

"Uh, no one, Axel. It's just an obvious thing." Sora shrugged his shoulders and looked up at the redhead. "Why do I need a college education? I really can't afford it, I don't have the time, and supposing I actually _did_ manage to survive through all four years, it's not like I'd be able to pursue a career. Destiny kinda picked out my career already, and it sucks big time."

"You can do anything you want, Sora," Axel said seriously. "_Anything_. You're the goddamn Slayer, after all. If anyone could do it, you could. You're like a real life superhero."

The brunette spread out on his side of the booth, stretching out his legs and leaning up against the rough, sparsely decorated wall. "Yeah. I'm totally the Batman."

"No, you're more like Spiderman-- no, Superman. No, Spiderman's probably more accurate," the bartender finally decided. "You weren't born with the powers, but unknowingly received them as a teenager. Spiderman."

"Whatever," Sora said with a chuckle, his stomach rumbling uncomfortably as their waitress set a plate of chips and salsa in the middle of their table before walking off with their orders.

And then Sora was treated to the sight of Axel stacking six salsa-dipped tortilla chips on top of one another and trying to stuff them all into his mouth, which, strangely, made everything seem alright again.

* * *

Sora staked the cowboy vampire as it launched itself at him and tried to grab at his arms, turning him into a fine powder that got carried away by the breeze. "Heads up!" the Slayer shouted as he spun around another vampire that had lunged at him, shoving him in Riku's direction.

The aqua-eyed vampire forced his stake into the other vampire's chest so hard that the tip emerged from the other side. Riku withdrew the stake as the body surrounding it started to dissolve. Then he sighed. "Sora, you're standing on my foot. While it doesn't _hurt_, it is kind of annoying."

"Sorry," the teenaged brunette muttered as he shuffled slightly to his left, moving his foot just enough that it wouldn't be on top of Riku's anymore.

"Why are you standing so close to me?" the vampire asked accusatorily. "Not that I'm complaining… it just makes me suspicious."

Sora swallowed. "I don't like abandoned warehouses. Bad things go down in abandoned warehouses." He scanned the dark interior of the warehouse frantically, already on edge from the surprise attack from a moment ago. Giant crates were piled haphazardly around the walls, some even broken open, either by nesting vampires or bums.

"You're the Slayer. I hate to break this to you, but bad things are bound to go down wherever you go. Bad things _follow_ you. You're like chum, and the bad things are like sharks. You--"

"I _get_ it, Riku." Sora made a small, unhappy sound and crossed his arms, frowning even more deeply when he looked down and saw vampire blood staining his sleeves. "I am a magnet for evil. But still, warehouses? They're almost as creepy as cornfields. I feel like things are watching me." He shuddered and rubbed his arms, where goosebumps had sprung up under the discolored sleeves.

The vampire looked at him blankly, his head slightly cocked as he tried to reason out why a cornfield would be scary. "Whatever you say. Well… we should probably check behind and inside the rest of these crates to make sure nothing is hiding."

"Hmmm… How about I take a raincheck and we go patrol somewhere _less_ mindbendingly horrifying, like a crypt or a morgue or the sewers or somewhere. Doesn't that sound like fun?" Sora asked anxiously, clinging to the vampire's arm and coaxing him to the man-sized hole in the rusty metal wall where they had entered.

Riku grinned at the Slayer's paranoia and fear over their location. "Fun?" he asked teasingly, grabbing onto the cinnamon haired boy's belt and tugging him a little closer, delighting in the boy's shocked reaction. "I thought Slayers weren't supposed to care about fu--"

A bright, white-yellow light erupted from the other end of the expansive building; Sora and Riku both ducked instinctively at the boom, the vampire turning his back to the flame and hiding his face from the too-bright glow.

"I TOLD YOU SO!" the Slayer screamed as the explosion died down, small pieces of metal and ash slowly raining from above. "Bad things go down in warehouses! Bad things!"

"A bomb?" Riku carefully peeked over the collar of his jacket, squinting cautiously at the residual light from a few small fires.

"It's probably the Mafia! I bet this is their place for storing drugs and guns and whatever else the Mafia deals in," Sora said quickly, clapping his hands to the sides of his head in panic. He inhaled sharply and grasped at the long knife that was strapped onto his leg.

"I wouldn't be so sure." Riku stood half in front of the brunette, their shoulders overlapping, as a man-shaped form emerged from the lingering smoke of the blast. "That is _not_ the Mafia."

A demon with a row of spikes protruding from the top of his head and all down his back smiled at them. In one hand he held a sword that appeared strangely organic, as if it had never been crafted by nature instead of hands. In the other there was a pile of something black and slick and shiny. The orange and yellow skinned demon continued to grin, his red eyes never leaving them for a second.

"Who the hell are you?" Riku asked angrily, his lips curling back to show pointed teeth.

"I am Maxen of the Sadwrn clan. There's no reason to introduce yourselves, though. The Slayer, obviously," he grinned, his nose wrinkling. "And you… I know you as well. Riku Väisälä, descended from Ansem's own lineage. You have so many prolific vampires in your bloodline, yet you choose to run with the Slayer now." He snorted. "I wish you both luck."

"Slayer…"

A strong hand tugged at the hem of Sora's sleeve as the spiked demon slowly approached them, moving in a half-circle shape as he closed in, blocking as much potential escape area as possible.

"Slayer, this isn't a good situation."

"Is it ever?"

"He looks like a professional."

Sora blinked at that. He'd gotten his fair share of attackers since becoming the Slayer, but he'd never had an _assassin_ sent after him. Typically, demons and vampires only used assassins to take out other demons and vampires. Using one on a Slayer was supposed to be an act of cowardice.

"What does that mean?" the teen asked apprehensively, keeping his eyes on the assassin.

There was another explosion, this time to the side of their location, herding them against the opposite wall. They both covered their heads as debris and dirt rained down.

"_That's_ what it means. He'll destroy anything and everything if it means succeeding." The vampire crouched defensively, preparing himself to dodge an attack or lunge at the assassin, whichever opening he was left with. "We need to get close, understand?"

Sora blinked and then nodded, sprinting behind a row of crates, out of the orange demon's sight, leaving Riku to face the spiky assassin alone.

Maxen sneered. "Abandoned so quickly. I would expect a vampire with such a bloodline and such a reputation to recognize when he is being used. But then again, I never expected someone like you to become a _neutered_ vampire, either." He closed the gap between them, spinning a slimy black ball between his fingers as he did. "These are one of my clan's greatest weapons. Would you like to see how they work?"

He lobbed the ball into the air, where it fell in an arc and stuck against one of the crates in the area Sora was hiding. It combusted a second later, showering the demon and Riku with small splinters of charred wood. Nothing was left of the Slayer's hiding place-- the area smoked and sizzled softly.

Slitted, aqua eyes narrowed lethally.

Maxen scoffed, carefully pouring the remaining few explosives into a pocket on his vest. "So much for the Slayer. Now, I don't _have_ to kill you, Riku Väisälä. There's even a chance that you could be returned to your former glory. Make a deal with me, and I would even be willing to--"

A small grey-clad blur dashed at the assassin from behind-- very nearly succeeding in slicing down the spiked demon's back-- and then spun off to the side before the assassin could retaliate. Riku made his move as well, lunging forward and ripping the demon's sword from his hands and turning it against him. The jagged edge seemed naturally made, and the material felt lighter and stronger than metal.

"You think you can defeat me with my own weapon?" Maxen laughed and stabbed his hand into his own abdomen, startling Sora and making Riku's eyes widen. Long, yellowed claws peeled back skin and flesh, revealing thick, dirty grey bones underneath. He snapped one of his long ribs off and pulled it out, grinning once again as the bone stretched and twisted into another serrated sword. "I can make a hundred of them," he laughed, orange skin sizzling as it melded back together.

Sora met the Riku's eyes and whispered just loud enough for it to carry to the vampire. "Take that one, too."

The assassin attacked ferociously, alternating between hacking at Riku with his sword and throwing smaller knives, ripped from the bone in his forearms, at the Slayer.

Sora smiled darkly as his satisfyingly deep cut to the back of the demon's leg opened a window for Riku; the vampire caught the assassin's bone-sword by the blade, slowly pulling it out of the yellow-orange demon's grasp. Blood ran from the laceration in his hand down his arm and to his elbow, dripping rapidly as he stalwartly kept his grip on the blade, determined to take it.

The demon was surprised by the vampire's strength and commitment. Suddenly, he let go of the weapon, making the silver haired vampire stumble backwards from the abrupt release. He snarled and peeled back the flesh on his chest to make another, spitting oaths at the exhausted vampire on the floor all the while.

"I'll cut you into so many pieces--"

"You're an idiot," Riku interrupted, gazing up at the demon with a cocky grin. "Incredibly unobservant. You must get pickpocketed all the time."

"What?"

"Hey," Sora greeted, stealthily appearing in front of the demon, not even a foot away. "You should pay more attention to what you have in your pockets." Before the assassin could act, the teen held up a sticky black ball and winked before knocking the demon's clawed hand aside and shoving it deep into Maxen's chest. He pushed the skin shut and as it began to sizzle and mend, he rammed his shoulder into the demon and sent him flying backwards. The assassin skidded across the floor and was stopped by a collision with a tall stack of wooden crates.

"Gotta run, gotta run, gotta get up and run," Sora muttered frantically as turned in the opposite direction and sprinted, grabbing Riku's bloody, outstretched hand along the way and dragging him along the floor, trying to get as far away from the soon-to-be-exploded assassin as possible. He was mostly concerned for Riku, who, as a vampire, tended to be more combustible and sensitive to bright light in general. Hoping that they were far enough away to be safe from the fiercest heat, the brunette abruptly stopped and dropped down on top of the larger man to act as a shield.

Sora felt the heat on his back before his ears even registered the sound. An explosion, even bigger than the first one, rocked the already crumbling warehouse, making the rusting walls creak dangerously. The Slayer felt small things thudding against his back, falling from the ceiling, maybe. The heat didn't subside; it stayed trapped in the warehouse building, fed by burning trash and crates.

"Slayer," the vampire beneath him said softly, pulling his head out from under the boy's chest and smiling at him. "You… you risked your life for me."

Sora grinned and tried to shrug nonchalantly, too proud of himself for the action to really come off as casual. "Well, you know, I try--"

"Don't ever, _ever_ do it again, you hear me?" Riku hissed, grabbing the boy's shoulders and shaking them. "You could have died, you damned moron! You could have caught on fire or been hit by _that_," he hissed as he pointed to a chunk of twisted metal lying embedded in the ground a few feet to their right, red hot and surrounded by ashes, "or--"

"Shh," the teenager chided, easing himself off of the vampire and then pulling him up. "I'm okay, you're okay, everything's okay!" He smiled brightly, too exuberant to match the desolation and post-apoclyptic atmosphere of their location.

"Let's get out of here so I can explain to you just how 'not okay' this situation is," Riku sighed, his face red from all the heat. He stumbled as he led the boy out though the rusted out hole that they had come through.

"Are you okay?" he asked, looking concernedly at the blood covering the bone-swords and sluggishly running down the vampire's arm.

"I'm fine. I just haven't had much blood lately, so I'm not healing as quickly as usual. Losing so much isn't helping, either," he added, glancing down at his red arm as well.

"You heal slower when you have less blood in your system? Hm." Sora scratched his head, wondering if the polite thing to do would be to buy Riku some blood. He'd injured himself while aiding Sora, and the teen was feeling responsible. He resolved to get ahold of some high quality blood for the vampire. "Why did you bring those?"

Riku followed the brunette's gaze to the swords in his hand. "These? These are amazing! I've never seen anything like them before," he answered, lifting up the two stained, off-white blades and smiling. "I can't wait to show Leon. He loves this kind of stuff."

Sora tried to hide his beaming smile. Riku seemed genuinely impressed by the weapons, and his excitement was contagious.

"_You_ get to keep the swords? Great. We both get attacked by an assassin, and all _I_ get is a head covered in ash and a hand covered in gross vampire blood," the Slayer said with a fake pout. "I need one of those cheap souvenir magnets."

"The ones like, 'I had a near-death experience with a hired killer and all I got was this lousy magnet'?"

"Yes. Exactly like that."

* * *

Roxas was peeved. He'd been peeved a lot lately. _'Here I am, letting that human walk all over me, letting him touch me, letting him live, and he can't even show up on time? He's so annoyingly ungrateful. When he walks in, I should punch him. No, I should just walk out. Maybe I should leave now? Or leave and then come back once he's asleep and just leap on top of him. That'll show him for standing me up like this.'_

The blonde crossed and uncrossed his legs, smoothing out his pants irritatedly every time he did so. Though he wouldn't admit it to the redhead, he actually very much liked his bedroom. It wasn't eye-gougingly horrible like the rest of his home. It smelled sweet yet clean and fresh, very much like the man himself. Roxas liked being surrounded by the smells of Axel-- it was like being in his presence, only without the constant chattering and bad-joke telling. There were uncountable numbers of trinkets and items and weapons on the shelves lining the walls, all unique and exotic. Roxas recognized a few from his world travels, and made a mental note to ask Axel about them, at a time in the future when he wasn't so pissed.

All in all, the blonde was still surprised that they'd gotten this far-- that Axel had invited him into his home, that Roxas hadn't killed him yet, that they were meeting on a regular basis. It was too much, really. If he knew any better, if he had enough sense and self-control to walk away…

Roxas inhaled deeply, admiring the human's scent, letting it distract him from those thoughts. The ones about leaving the redhead alone.

Because it just couldn't be done, even if the damned man couldn't be bothered to keep to their schedule. Even if it meant antagonizing him, or being antagonized, it was still better than not being with him at all.

The cheap, round clock on the wall read 4:52. Sunrise was at 6: 46. This tardiness was cutting into Roxas' most enjoyable activity with the redhead, and he was not pleased about it. It was nearly an hour after closing time, and the bartender was still not home. And he hadn't called to say he'd be late, either. _'Jerk. Probably out goofing around with the damned Slayer. As if that brat can't be happy he's already got Riku wrapped around his pinky, he has to have Axel, too. Over my dead_er_ body--'_

His head shot up as he heard the door click in the next room, a key being pressed into the lock. Roxas shot up from the bed, already berating the human for his lateness just as the door cracked open. "You insignificant little-- I've been waiting for you for fifty-three minutes. I can't laze around until sunrise, like some…"

The vampire's eyes narrowed as Axel half-stumbled through the door, leaning against the wall for support. He could smell blood and more on the man. "What happened?" he asked darkly, moving behind the redhead and picking him up effortlessly. He quickly set him on the lopsided couch in the living room and kneeled down beside him.

"This freakin' huge dog bit me on the way here," Axel answered indignantly, picking at the sweater fabric that was haphazardly wrapped around his forearm.

"Just how big was it? It looks like it tore half your arm off," Roxas said flatly, peeling away the red-soaked fabric and frowning deeply at the wound. He grimaced as the distinctive smell hit him. There were puncture wounds and lacerations; his entire arm was painted red with blood.

"I already said it was freakin' huge! How much more specific can I get?" the redheaded bartender groaned, writhing into the couch.

"It wasn't a dog, you idiot," the vampire said softly, shutting his eyes and exhaling heavily. He rocked back on his heels, covering his face with his small hands. "You know all about demons and magic and seventh century weaponry, but you can't even recognize a transformed werewolf?"

Axel stilled, feeling as though he was at the bottom of the ocean, without air and with the weight of a thousand atmospheres on his chest. He couldn't hear, or see, or _think_-- it really was as if he was underneath the sea.

It wasn't until he caught a voice that his mind wandered back.

"You stopped breathing for a moment," Roxas said without feeling. "And you've been staring at the same place on the wall for nearly four minutes." He glanced over, meeting the man's heavily-lidded green eyes for a split second before returning to his work.

The redhead looked down and to his left, surprised to see the vampire wrapping his cleaned arm with a roll of bandages. He couldn't remember even telling Roxas where the bandages were, much less asking him for help. Axel was surprised at how adept he was at fixing up wounds; the blonde didn't seem like the nurturing, care-taking type. The redhead worried for a moment about the blood, but relaxed as he thought back to all the times Roxas had bitten and cut him before yet never lost control.

"I never… I never really asked about werewolves much… at the bar," he said slowly. His mouth felt like it was lined with cotton, and his tongue was heavy. "I don't think many… came in, actually. Too many vampires there. They look so human anyway. It's really hard to tell. Is it… when you get bitten--"

"The lycanthropy disease is one-hundred percent communicable. Every bite infects." Roxas rubbed the bridge of his nose, hoping to dispel the tension that was building in his head. He pressed an icy hand against the redheaded man's forehead, where tiny pinpricks of sweat had started to form; he felt hot to the touch, hotter than usual, already showing signs of a fever.

"And there's no cure," Axel added from below, numbly watching Roxas wind the bandages round and round his arm, encircling the wounds that covered him from wrist to elbow.

Roxas sighed and shook his head, visibly upset and angered. "I could smell their filth on you as soon as you walked in, but I was hoping it was just a scent you'd picked up at work," the blonde whispered as he finished the bitten bartender's arm. He messily ran his fingers through his yellow hair. "I should have known better than to leave you alone there, when I knew full well there are mindless animals like that running around. When we first moved to this city we should have run their troublesome kind out. I don't know why we didn't."

"They don't usually attack people," Axel said weakly, unsure why he was defending a creature that had just altered his life beyond repair.

"I don't care what they _usually_ do," the vampire hissed. "I care about what they did now. This never goes away! Don't you understand?" He stood and walked into the kitchen, out of Axel's sight.

The redhead heard him rummaging through cabinets, sliding dishes around and tossing out pantry foods. He looked back down at his arm, at the cleanly wrapped limb that had spread a poison through him. Axel shuddered, scared and uncertain of what to expect now. He almost didn't believe this, this whole situation. It seemed ridiculous, yet here he was, suffering a werewolf bite and being tended to by a vampire. Maybe it was a dream? A cruel joke?

Roxas returned with two small, blue pills in hand. He slid them into the human's mouth and then poured in some water from a glass, urging the redhead to swallow. "That should help with the pain." The vampire paused, clearly conflicted about what he was about to say. "You need to call the Slayer. He'll be better able to help you with this. I can only stay until sunrise, which is fast approaching."

Roxas handed the phone to the man sprawled on the couch and then headed back into the redhead's bedroom, pulling out his cell phone as he went. He flipped it open and went to the list of contacts, his fingers quickly scrolling down to his home number. The blonde shut his eyes, wanting more than anything to call Leon and let the words tumble out but too scared and stubborn to go through with it.

"Roxas?"

The vampire snapped the phone shut and was back at the redhead's side in seconds. "What?"

"Sora answered. He said he'd be right over as soon as he got some stuff ready for me at his place." He sighed, vacantly aware that this 'stuff' probably included some sedatives, some chains, and a cage.

"No time," Roxas mumbled, scooping up the taller man and walking to the door. "I want to make sure you're with the Slayer before I go home."

"I'm fine," Axel said inaudibly, his long arms wrapped clumsily around the small vampire and his face pressed close to the yellow hair. "You don't have to worry about me."

"Shut up."

Axel did, feeling extremely drowsy and unfocused again. He wasn't sure if it was the pain medicine Roxas had given him-- he kept some fairly strong stuff in that medicine cabinet-- or the bite itself, or blood loss catching up to him again. And perhaps he was delirious, he half wondered, and only imagining that he was being cared for and worried over by this smaller man.

Hallucination or not, Axel smiled and pressed his forehead against Roxas' neck. Wrapping himself entirely around the blonde vampire certainly seemed like a pleasant idea right now, at least to his exhausted brain and burning body. Roxas was the best medicine of all, as refreshing as clean, cool sheets, instantly soothing whatever skin Axel touched against him.

"Are we going upstairs?"

"Yes, I'm taking you upstairs."

"But the street is down--"

"I _know_ that," the vampire growled, clenching his jaw and reminding himself that the bartender was definitely out of it by now, the bite making him feverous and lethargic and muddling his thoughts. "If I take you out onto the streets, there's a better chance of someone seeing you lolling around in my arms like a man half-dead and calling the police. It'll be faster and less bothersome to go by rooftop."

"'Mmkay," the redhead said groggily, his head tipping back slightly as he started drifting in and out of consciousness.

Roxas carried him onto the rooftop and surveyed the city-- though he'd never seen or visited the Slayer before, the blonde was an excellent tracker and had confidence in his abilities to locate the boy's home relatively quickly and efficiently. Roxas leapt onto a lower building nearby, landing soundlessly and then running onward. It only took a few minutes for him to detect and separate the smell of the human that was more than human, stale from age and mostly obscured by the fresher, stronger scents of vampires, car fumes, other humans, and trash. Still, it was all that the vampire needed.

He followed the trail from the rooftops as it veered and swerved through streets and alleys and yards-- only having to backtrack twice-- until it led to a slightly rundown residential area. As Roxas closed in, he pinpointed which one of the small homes exuded the unique smell of the Slayer. Still, he was wary of going close. Weak or not, this was still a Slayer: even the inexperienced, "weak" ones had taken out powerful vampires in the past.

Roxas edged around the property, shifting the bulk of unconscious Axel in his arms. The lights inside were still on inside, and the vampire could hear movement within. Just as he drew up the nerve to cross the Slayer's territory and walked up onto the porch, the door swung open.

Sora stood in the doorway, a thick coat half-on and keys in one hand. He stood motionless, staring at an equally still Roxas, who was holding the limp body of his best friend.

"What did you do?" the Slayer whispered venomously, his expression hardening as his gaze went from Axel to the vampire.

"Nothing to hurt him, if that's what you're implying," the blonde answered with the same amount of poison in his voice. He cleared his throat; looking into the boy's eyes felt like looking into a mirror. Roxas glanced down at the man in his arms before reaching out and offering him to the brunette. "I brought him to you, so that you could take care of him sooner. To make sure he stays safe."

Sora didn't hesitate to take the redhead, pulling his sleeping body close and stepping back inside the house, where Roxas was prevented from entering. "Why not just take him back to your house, if you're so concerned. You didn't seem to have a problem with that before."

"Because vampires and werewolves have hated each other since time immemorial," the vampire said coldly, stepping backwards and retreating down the porch stairs, never turning his back on the Slayer. "And associating with one would be unseemly."

Sora stood in the doorway until Roxas disappeared from sight, swallowed up in shadows. Then he shut the door and turned his attention to Axel.

* * *

Sora sighed as he dabbed the redheaded man's forehead with a cool, wet cloth.

Axel slept fitfully in his feverous sleep, moving and twitching and murmuring incoherently. He yanked and tugged against the chains that were clasped around his wrists and ankles, as if he knew they were there despite his unaware state.

Sora exhaled loudly, covering his face with his hands to shield himself from the sunlight pouring through the window. "How could you let something like this happen to you?" he asked the slumbering man in disbelief.

The brunette took hold of the frightfully pale, sweating, shivering man's hand, hoping it would somehow comfort him. Sora thought about how they'd met, just after he'd found out he was the Slayer, and how quickly they had developed a solid friendship after that. No one understood him the way Axel did, or had the same sense of humor, or knew what to do to make the teen feel better.

He squeezed tightly on his hand.

* * *

Axel felt like everything in his mind was on shuffle mode. Old nightmares and dreams mixed with memories like a cut and spliced video of his life. Everything was jumbled and confusing, running together and melding and then changing before he even had time to clearly remember what he was seeing. It was chaos, making his head ache as he tried to keep up with his own mind. The fact that he felt combustible, his skin and blood heated to a boiling point, wasn't helping either.

And he heard a voice that made him smile and felt a touch that made him calm, and one memory was clear from all the rest:

"Hey. You dead yet?"

Axel spoke around an unlit cigarette, scratching his head lazily with one hand as he held a bulging black garbage bag in the other. The sound of a police siren echoed from blocks away.

The blood-smeared teen slumped on the opposite side of the alley jerked his leg in response, emitting a barely audible moan.

The redhead sighed as he heaved the trash into the dingy dumpster in the alleyway. "Guess not… look, kid," he said roughly, pulling out the cigarette and holding it between his thumb and forefinger. "I don't care if you die, but just don't do it behind my place, alright? The last thing I need is cops sniffing around, and I definitely don't want to get into the business of disposing of bodies."

Sora inhaled shakily and curled up further, clearly unable to respond. He pressed a hand over the gash on his abdomen, where blood was seeping freely and pooling on the cement.

Axel spotted a stake nearby, along with a scattering of ashes spread around the teen, and just _knew_ it-- this was his luck. At best, it was some idiot kid trying his hand at being a hunter to avenge his family or some sentimental shit, and at worst, he was dealing with the new Slayer. He watched the boy a bit longer, waiting to see if he would finally give up and die in the next few seconds.

The cinnamon-haired boy shuddered and clutched onto a silver chain around his neck with a bloody hand, shutting his eyes and mumbling to himself.

"Oh, fuck me. Why do I do this to myself?" the bartender asked doggedly as he scooped up the boy and carried him to the backdoor.

Sora gasped as he was jostled around, a jolt of pain making his spine burn. "I-I thou…ght you'd l-l-left."

The redhead ignored the boy's astonished remark. "I must enjoy stress. Either that, or my conscience hates me and forces me to undergo the most arduous acts of kindness _ever_. Why can't I just help some old people find their cars in a parking lot, or carry their groceries for them?" he asked as he laid the boy down on a low table in the dimly lit storeroom. "Why does it have to be fixing up vampire victims? I'm not an expert on this, y'know. Now don't get too much blood on me, kid, or the vampires'll give me a hard time out there," the redhead muttered, jerking his head to the front of the building as he popped open a large first aid kit.

Sora winced as Axel applied pressure to the large wound on his abdomen. "I-I'm Sora."

The redhead pretended to ignore him, still unsure as to whether the teen could recover from these wounds; he didn't want the pressure or connection that knowing his name would bring, just in case he couldn't be saved.

But the brunette was persistent. He grabbed the man's arm, leaving a smear of blood as he struggled to hold on. "I'm Sora." And he looked desperate.

"Nice to meet you, Sora." The bartender smiled, reaching up to ruffle the cinnamon brown spikes reassuringly. It seemed to work; Sora released his arm and lay still on the makeshift hospital bed. "Though I wish we could have under different circumstances, what with you being practically gutted and all," the taller man replied, smiling as he held up a needle filled with an almost glowing blue-green fluid and flicked the syringe a few times. "Name's Axel. Commit that to memory, okay?"

Sora nodded, barely flinching as Axel stuck him in the arm, slowly pushing the unnaturally bright liquid into his veins. "Axel. Axel, Axel, Axel, Axel, Axel, Axel, Axel, Axel," the brunette repeated over and over, using it as some sort of soothing mantra to distract from the pain.

Axel swallowed as he caught the boy staring at him, entirely too much trust in his large sapphire eyes. _'No pressure, no pressure… he's only putting his life in your hands, Axel, that's all… your very shaky, unsteady hands. Untrained hands. Non-sterile, too, I might add. If he doesn't die of blood loss or internal injury, it'll be because of an infection my germ ridden hands give him. As if I don't have enough guilt issues to deal with already.'_

The injection began to take effect quickly, making Sora's eyes flicker shut and his labored breathing slow. Axel breathed deeply and began doing what he could.

* * *

"And then you left me on the floor behind your bar counter, so you could keep an eye on me while you worked," Sora laughed, still holding onto the unconscious Axel's warm hand. He didn't bother wiping away his tears anymore; Axel was the only one here, and he couldn't see him crying. "Then you bitched me out for getting hurt and making you waste your best potion on healing me, but I could tell you were happy that I was still alive."

The Slayer rubbed the back of Axel's hand with his thumb, sniffing as he remembered their terrible first meeting. "And you'd even poured whiskey on me while I was still unconscious, because you figured I was the Slayer and you wanted to hide my smell from all your customers." He snorted, chuckling despite the tears. "We're both no good when it comes to first impressions. I was rolling around half-dead in an alley, and you were practically telling me to hurry up and kick the bucket-- but only after I was off of your property, of course."

Sora tipped his head back to stare at the cracks in the ceiling. They were almost like constellations, capable of making fish and bears and dragons and whatever else you could imagine. Sora could see the shape of a bat in one particular crack, though Axel disagreed and said it was Cher. The brunette felt his stomach churn, bringing up feelings of cruelty and betrayal and a hundred other negative things-- here he was, reminiscing over some of the best memories he'd shared with his friend in this room, while said friend was unconscious and shackled to the wall like a prisoner. It was like a perversion of all the memories of the nights they'd hung out and watched TV or told stories while they cleaned weapons and devised battle strategies or had movie-marathon, popcorn-filled sleepovers.

Sora was no stranger to failure, and this entire situation reeked of it. He'd failed Axel as a friend. He had the means to protect the redhead from attacks like this, but he'd never really felt the need to check on the bartender often or walk him home. He sometimes forgot that Axel was still only human, only a man, not as capable of defending himself against evil or as perceptive of danger as Sora gave him credit for, even though he surrounded himself with it.

"I still can't believe you just laid me on your bar's floor while I was barely recovered from that attack. You're unbelievable." Sora raked his fingers through cherry red hair, lifting the spikes that were plastered onto his head by sweat. "But that was the first time that I felt truly safe after finding out that I was the Slayer. The floor was sticky, and I was still in so much pain, and I had a headache from the smell of whiskey, but I knew that at least _one_ person was looking out for me. That meant a lot, especially since I'd already lost my parents, and the Watchers were barely any help, and Cloud couldn't know. You're what's kept me sane and alive this whole time. Between school and slaying… you were always there to help, even when you didn't want to."

Sora sat with the redhead for the rest of the day, cleaning his face with wet washcloths, pouring water into his mouth, fanning him, talking to him, playing his favourite CDs for him… the hours passed like they were just minutes, which was why the Slayer was so startled when he heard someone tapping at his second story window.

The brunette stalked over to the window, reluctant to leave Axel, and was surprised to see that it was after sundown. He threw open the large window, hissing at the vampire perched in the tree beside the house. "Riku! What are you doing here?"

"Roxas told me what happened-- he barely made it back before sunrise. I'm here for support. In case he gets loose or something."

"You can't come inside my house, Riku," the teen said tiredly.

"Fine. Then I'm here for _moral_ support," he said exasperatedly. "But seriously, if he breaks free, jump out the window and I'll catch you."

Sora rubbed his temples tiredly, already feeling worn through-and-through. He could get by on less sleep than most humans, but this was pushing it, even for him-- especially with the added strain of Axel's predicament. "Whatever. Listen… I don't know much about werewolves. It's not like I'm Sora the Werewolf Slayer-- thank God-- so I've never seen one in action or anything." He sighed and turned back to Axel, who was limp in his chains, held to the wall by thick bolts and heavy metal. "I just… What happens now?"

Riku made himself comfortable on the narrow window ledge, stretching his mouth into a grim smile. "Well… I know that newborn werewolves are much more dangerous than newborn vampires. Their power spikes off the charts, beyond even an aged werewolf's. They don't remember their human life at first-- they're all animal, all raw power and instinct. That's why they're so dangerous. They can't even control _when_ they change."

"Will it hurt him?"

The vampire shrugged. "I'm not sure. I would guess so… I've heard it happening before. The noises they make don't sound pleasant. You should gag him so the neighbors don't hear."

Sora stared at Riku coldly, his eyes watering.

"Slayer… I'm not saying it to be cruel, or to make you feel bad. It's- he could just as easily infect you if he bites while transformed, and if he starts howling and other humans complain to the police, you'll have an even worse situation on your hands. He wouldn't want to hurt you or anyone else. If you really care about Axel, you'll do everything you can to keep him from doing something he'll regret for the rest of his life-- like spreading this to another person, or killing them outright."

The teenager bit his lip and nodded. "Sorry. I'm tired and not so… emotionally stable right now." He got one of his nicer, thicker scarves and wrapped it around and around the bartender's head, carefully looping it through his mouth and securely knotting it.

"Understandably." The vampire let his head rest against the side of the widow frame, his bright eyes trained on the restless figure of Axel. "I think Roxas is trying to track down the local pack. Attacks like this are usually rare, as each city's pack leader tends to keep the rest of the local werewolves on a pretty tight leash-- even the rogues."

"Roxas found me. I'm sure he can find a bunch of werewolves."

"Hmmmm." Riku raised an eyebrow as he considered. "I don't know. You're not hiding, Slayer. Any vampire could find you, eventually-- most just don't want to mess with it. Roxas is adept at speed tracking, that's for sure, but werewolves go to enormous lengths to keep their lairs hidden from us. They've had centuries and centuries to perfect their methods, to keep nosy vampires from hunting them down. Roxas has his work cut out for him."

Sora sat on the edge of his bed, halfway between the wall where Axel was chained and the window where Riku was perched. "So werewolves and vampires hate each other? That's so cliché."

Riku grinned and chuckled. "Yeah. It's not exactly… uh, an _active_ hate. It's an old hate. We don't really fight or war anymore. There's just this tension and mistrust on both sides. We don't like getting entangled in each other's business."

"Do werewolves ever drink blood?" The teen ruffled his hair as he tried to think of what he knew of the reclusive werewolves and what he still needed to ask.

"Only if you count the blood that drips out of raw meat," the vampire said disdainfully. "Speaking of blood, I'm hungry. I probably should have eaten before I came here."

Sora's jaw dropped. "Nah, you think?" he asked sarcastically, grinning despite his exhaustion and worry for Axel. "Don't get any ideas. That is not a drive-thru window and I am not a Slayer Meal with extra sauce."

They both jumped as a metallic snap resounded from the other side of the room, where Axel had suddenly pulled one of the chains taught and was now shaking as he struggled against it.

"He's about to change! Slayer, come stand by the window," Riku ordered, sitting up straight and pressing himself against the invisible barrier, wishing he could be inside, if only to grab the idiot Slayer and pull him as far away from the werewolf as possible.

Sora was frozen as he watched Axel began the transformation. Muffled cries and growls filled the room as he whipped his body around on the floor, straining against the chains and making the walls groan.

"How securely are those chains put into the wall?" the vampire asked anxiously, licking his lips as the changing werewolf started twisting as he pulled away from the wall.

"They're hooked to the frame of the house…" the brunette said softly. "It should hold. And if it doesn't, I have this." He picked up a small dart on his nightstand.

"I hope that's enough to knock him out in one hit," Riku said sourly. "And I hope you're good at darts, since it seems you didn't bother to go for the gun."

A muted, aching howl made Sora's hair stand on end; there was a series of sickening crunches and pops that made him turn away, and when the teen looked back, the redhead was already half-transformed. His clothes were ripping apart, tearing at the seams as he grew. Sleek, shiny fur, varying in color from sangria to rust, covered his body. White claws stroked the floor as he stretched, his spine popping as it lengthened and a stiff tail was formed.

The room went quiet as the change from man into wolf finished. Sora was scared to even breathe; were-Axel sniffed the air turned his head to the window, looking straight past Sora and focusing on Riku. He snarled and bared his teeth, slightly impeded by the scarf in his mouth.

Sora stepped in front of Riku and right into Axel's line of sight. The brunette quaked as the werewolf continued to stare at him with eyes that were both startlingly human and devoid of humanity. They were still Axel's eyes-- the same shade of green, the same familiar shape-- but without the concern or the emotion behind them, too animalistic to belong to the caring redhead.

Axel shook his long neck, making the metal collar around his neck and the attached chain clink and jingle hollowly.

"Ax--"

Sora pressed his back against the opposite wall as the wolf lunged forward, muscles shifting and bulging as he threw himself toward the boy, his snout twisted by a fierce snarl. Clawed, furred, human-like hands managed to reach the edge of the bed, hooking on the comforter and ripping it off in a matter of seconds. The Axel-wolf enthusiastically tore the cotton-stuffed blanket into shreds, furiously biting and tearing at the fabric.

"Use the damn dart," Riku hissed under his breath, keeping his jaw clenched as he spoke. "Use it, before he does to you what he's doing to that blanket."

Sora sniffed as a particularly large chunk of cotton went flying. "He's still my friend, somewhere in there, and I can't just go around throwing elephant sedatives at my friends. And honestly, I think werewolves look a little more like hyenas than wolves," the Slayer added, noting were-Axel's high, sloping shoulders and his long neck that was topped by a rigid, pale red mane. However, the back end of his body seemed almost greyhound-like, lengthy and lean, with a straight, stiff tail.

"Fine. Werewolf, werehyena, I really don't care." The vampire's voice rose in agitation. "Fangs are still fangs, and claws are still claws. The fact of the matter is new werewolves don't retain any memories of their human lives. He's not Axel right now, and treating him as though he is will get you or someone else maimed."

Sora nodded and edged around the bed, trying his best to recall the stealthy movements he'd seen in a badly translated ninja movie once. As soon as he felt he was close enough to make a clear shot, the floorboards creaked.

The werewolf's wide, spade-like head whipped toward him, tufts of cotton still hanging from his mouth-- it would have been comical if Axel wasn't staring him down like he was the last piece of fried chicken at a buffet.

"Sorry, Ax," Sora apologized in advance, slinging the dart before the red wolf could move any further. It hit him in the shoulder, the tip lodging deep in the thick muscle; Axel growled weakly and made a few skittering steps before collapsing on the floor, his head lolling to the side and his long, pink tongue hanging out.

"Shit," Riku cursed from the window, peeling himself off of the barrier and giving Sora a hard stare. "You're a real piece of work, Slayer. You're lucky I'm already dead, or you would've just given me a heart attack."

"He's… kinda cute when he's asleep." Sora nudged Axel gingerly with his foot, stepping back quickly in case he wasn't in as deep a sleep as he appeared.

Riku looked like he disagreed vehemently. But he kept quiet, except for a resigned 'hm', and started to climb from the window back to the tree.

"Where are you going?" Sora asked interestedly, taking his focus off of Axel for a moment.

"To eat. I'm so hungry I could drink the Red Sea, if it was actually red and delicious." The vampire stood nimbly on a branch, still giving the teen a concerned stare. "Be careful, Slayer. Watch him. If something happens, don't try to handle him alone, okay? You still have my number, right?"

"Yes," Sora reluctantly admitted, looking down at the floor as he felt his face heat up. He vividly remembered the night when Riku had given him his number-- slid it into the Slayer's pockets in between staking vampires, just fast enough so that Sora couldn't react but just slow enough that the boy could feel him there. "How could I forget?"

"Exactly as I'd intended," the vampires said with a self-assured smirk. "Don't be afraid to call me. I can't bite you through the phone."

"Ha ha ha," Sora said loudly as the vampire leapt out of sight, leaving the bare branches in the tree shaking and swaying emptily.

* * *

Slowly, Axel began to remember who he was.

It started out with a brief thought of 'I don't remember having fur'. That was all that came to mind before lapsing back into wherever he was, dimly aware that he wasn't holding the reins to his own body.

Then it happened more and more frequently, questions like 'Is that a _tail_?' and 'Have I always had such big ears?' now accompanied by fragments of conversations filled with voices he didn't recognize. Then there were splintered memories-- just one or two seconds of a place, or a person, or some object.

And in between those times was darkness, where he couldn't make heads or tails of who he was.

More and more bits and pieces of himself gathered until he was finally able to recall his own name. And suddenly he felt on the verge of being himself again. It was like swimming and opening your eyes just seconds before you surfaced-- he could see what was happening, though it was rippled and a little blurred, yet he was separated from actually being there by a matter of _inches_.

He could see the foliage around him blurring as he streaked through the woods, and he could smell the vampire fleeing far in front of him, and he could feel hot saliva dripping down his jaw, but that didn't change the fact that he was incapable of doing anything about it. His mind and body were separate entities; and while his mind was conflicted and screaming for pause, his body was running on autopilot, holding no qualms with tearing into whatever flesh was within reach.

"Axel!"

He didn't know if his body was just caught off-guard by the demanding voice, or if perhaps he had maintained some thread of control after all, but his head turned to face the human speaker and he slowed for just a second. That moment of hesitation was all that was needed to pin him to the ground with a weighted net made of chainmail.

"I'm sorry, Axel." A brunette teen stooped to stroke the metal links over his furred head. "I'd scratch you behind the ears, but we had to make sure to use tight linked mail so you wouldn't escape again."

Suddenly Axel felt attached to his body again, his mind wired to his limbs and mouth and… tail. The boy was nothing short of a miracle worker.

"Sora?" he asked, wincing as his voice came out lower, more like a growl than anything else. "I'm… We're in the woods."

The teen was surprised to hear the wolf speak. Riku hadn't mentioned that. "Ax… you remember me? You're… yourself again?"

Axel tried to nod, his head held to the ground by the heavy net that covered him. He nosed at the edge, feeling trapped and panicked, and yelped as his snout was singed.

"Whoa, careful there," Sora cautioned, stretching out the metal net so that the edge wasn't so close to the werewolf. "Riku brought this from his vampire dad guy's house. He said it's from when vampires and werewolves used to fight a lot. The edges are gilded with silver to keep werewolves from crawling out."

"Roxas," the man in wolf form muttered sadly, wincing again as it came out as more of a low-pitched whine than actual words.

"Don't worry about Roxas," Riku said stiffly as he approached Axel from the side, a sturdy muzzle in hand.

Axel recoiled at his smell.

"Yeah, I don't think _you_ smell that great either," the vampire said lowly as he started unbuckling the muzzle's leather straps.

"Do you really think we need that? Axel's not wild now," Sora said hopefully, his hand resting on the werewolf's head.

"Of course we need it," the vampire said with a glare. "Don't ask questions that you already know the answer to."

Axel pressed his furry ears down against his head, strange guilt and embarrassment welling up inside him.

Sora sensed his swing in mood and rubbed his shoulders comfortingly. "What do you remember?"

"I remember getting bitten… and then Roxas taking care of me."

Riku's jaw clenched and he shifted uncomfortably.

"That's all?" Sora asked softly, his eyebrows raised.

"Yeah. Why? What happened?"

"Roxas brought you to my house. He almost didn't make it back to his home before sunrise. Then I tied you up and tried to keep you comfy, and then Riku showed up, and then you changed and got violent so I-- uh, I had to jab you with a tranquilizer. Sorry," the brunette said with a grimace.

"No, I understand," Axel said with a small nod.

"And then you slept for the rest of the night and the next day _and_ the next night-- the sedative was a little stronger than I thought-- and I had to go to school, but you weren't moving around much, so I just set out some meat for you and left, and then…"

Sora replayed the events in his mind at high speed-- his coming home to find Axel missing, his frantic call to Riku at five in the afternoon, his fruitless daylight search for the missing wolf, his discovery of a twisted trail of eviscerated, half-consumed deer, dogs and rabbits… Then Riku's arrival at sundown, with an array of silver weapons and the silver-lined net, and their long task of tracking the werewolf down before he killed or attacked any people. And then Riku's deciding to be the lure, knowing a bloodlusting werewolf couldn't ignore a vampire right in front of him.

"… and then you escaped, and now we caught you."

Axel picked up on the hesitation and suspected a few details were being left out. "Did I do anything… bad?"

"Only if you count killing wildlife and stray pets as bad," Riku answered as he peeled back the metal netting and slid the muzzle over Axel's snout.

The wolf offered no resistance, worn out by the hours he couldn't even remember. Now that his body wasn't caught up in the thrill of the hunt, pumped full of adrenaline, it was sore and aching, begging for rest.

Riku also clamped a thick, heavy stone collar around his neck; Sora looped a chain through it like a leash.

The red wolf staggered to his feet, swaying under the weight of the collar and the oppressiveness of the muzzle. Deep inside, he could feel the tumbling anger and aggression of the animal he was now sharing a body with rising; without reservation, he pushed those emotions back down to where they were almost unfelt. He was in no mood to deal with that part of himself right now.

Axel was steered along with Sora, holding the leash, on one side and Riku on the other. The werewolf could barely stomach the silver-haired vampire's scent; it was overpowering and grating, making his nose itch unpleasantly.

It wasn't long before they stopped-- not at Sora's home, but in the middle of one of the city's abandoned graveyards. The Slayer gave a gentle tug on the chain tied to Axel's collar and led him to a small but impressively built mausoleum.

"This is where you're going to have to stay for a while, Axel," the teen said, his tone conveying guilt overlapped by determination. "I just don't have the means to keep you at home."

"That's okay," the werewolf mumbled, the muzzle garbling his already muddled words. He shook his head wearily, hoping for a place to lie down and sleep. He followed Sora inside the tiny structure and down steep stairs to the vault below.

A barred door had been welded at the top of the stairs, capable of being swung down to block the stair entrance. The vault was complete with a shabby dog bed, a number of battery-powered lanterns, a few changes of clothes, and some cow bones and beef jerky.

"It isn't much," Sora sighed, "but it'll have to do for right now." He stopped at the top of the stairs, holding on to the metal-barred door.

Axel sniffed the jerky and wagged his tail. "Mmm, Teriyaki."

Sora laughed tiredly and then sighed as he closed the heavy bars over the entrance and put the numerous locks around the door into use. "I'll be visiting you and bringing you tons of food. Is there anything you want in particular?"

"Just raw meat. Whatever's cheapest."

The brunette scoffed. Axel was getting ribeye, and that was that.

"Slayer." The aqua-eyed vampire put a hand on his shoulder and directed him to the door. "I need to have a word with the werewolf. _Alone_." Silver eyebrows rose meaningfully.

Sora nodded and bid Axel goodnight, sticking his fingers through the prison-like bars and scratching his nose affectionately.

Riku stooped to tug on the door, making sure it was securely fastened. He remained in a crouch as he licked his lips and looked down at the red-hued wolf. "Axel…" He trailed off quietly, searching for the right words to say. "I know that you know that werewolves and vampires don't have the best of histories. But I wanted to tell you that you don't have to worry about me or my family. Just for future information. And if you are ever in desperate need of help and the Slayer is otherwise engaged, you are… welcome to find us."

"That's reassuring." Axel was wary, since the vampire had never come off as very fond of him, even before he was a werewolf, but he grinned toothily anyway. They were comforting words.

"However," the pale one continued stiffly, once again eyeing the latches that fastened the barred door, "Roxas asked me to relay a message. He would prefer it if you and he didn't see each other anymore."

The werewolf's grin took several seconds to fade. But as soon as it did, shock, confusion and anger, the last being the strongest, rose up, changing his snout into a snarling, twitching mess. He felt the animal inside taking advantage of his emotions, amplifying and intensifying them, making his human mind weak. Just controlling his own temper left him drained. "What do you mean? H-he helped me."

"It was hard enough for him with you being a human," the vampire explained, frowning. "Roxas has always been a stickler when it comes to decorum. He disregarded it with you once, but… I don't think he can handle a werewolf. That's almost as bad as being with a Slayer. Maybe worse, in some ways. It just doesn't happen."

"No. No, I'm not going to sit here and accept that. You may not know this, but I'm not a big fan of following convention. Screw the norm, I say. So what? So _fucking_ what if he's a vampire and I happen to be a werewolf? I don't give a shit. He's the one that started this with me in the first place! He needs to take responsib--"

"He hates you," Riku interrupted. "He told me to make that clear. Roxas harbors, like many of our kind, a deep animosity for the werewolves-- you included. It's nothing personal. Please don't push this, Axel. Leave him alone." The vampire sighed and tapped the metal bars in a brief farewell before exiting, leaving the red wolf alone with his thoughts.

* * *

Cloud let the last of the graded reports drop onto his coffee table with a satisfying thud. The stack was thick. The grades were dismal. The papers were such a disappointment to Cloud that he started considering spending an extra few days reviewing them with the class-- some were marked up with so much red ink that it looked as though the innumerable sentence fragments, conflicting tenses, and violation of MLA had finally become too much for Cloud and he'd stabbed himself in the throat with his grading pen to end the torment, splattering blood over the pages. A fate which, the blonde had to admit to himself, had started to seem appealing after coming across the third paper to misspell the name of the main character of the short story they were writing about.

But now the papers were done. The long, drawn out hours of reading and critiquing and correcting were done, and the teacher was now able to lean back on his couch and stretch his sore, cramped muscles.

He sighed as he glanced at the clock: it was barely nine. He wasn't tired at all, either. A dinner of fast food fried chicken, baby pickles, and an ultra-grande double espresso ensured that he wouldn't be bothered by sleep for at least another few hours.

As he scratched his head, trying to decide whether he should try to finish painting his bathroom or cleaning out the fridge, he caught sight of the tiny slip of paper pinned to the corkboard by his kitchen, right next to a dozen unlucky lotto tickets, and pressed his lips together firmly.

This was it. This was the night. He stood and pulled the paper from the board, grabbed the phone, and paused with his finger resting on the first number-- six. His lip twitched as he tried to remember what the calling rule was after a first date. It had been four nights.

'_Have I gone too long without calling him? Should I wait longer? Do I ask him out?' _he wondered. Dating really was not like riding a bike. Not that Cloud had ever been well-practiced at it in the first place…

He felt pathetic for struggling so much over a telephone call, behaving too much like one of his lovestruck teenage students rather than the down-to-earth adult he should be.

Everything had gone _perfectly_ on their first date-- well, as perfect as could be expected, with the bitter cold and the ice. Cloud was hesitant to make any move that could ruin the future or tarnish the memory. Unfortunately, any attempt to advance their tenuous relationship also came with the danger of Cloud slipping up and sending it down the drain. He had the tendency to do that.

His stats weren't too good in the dating arena.

As he thought back on all the nights he'd spent home lately, sitting alone and grading papers, or reading books, or trying (mostly) without success to find non-psychotics over the internet, he formed his resolve to make the call.

He dialed the number and then squeezed his eyes shut as it rang, half-hoping that no one would answer.

Then the sound of the phone being picked up.

"Leon? Uh, I was, uh… calling--"

"Helloooooo," a cheery voice answered, drowning out Cloud's quiet, monotone rambling with its enthusiasm.

"Hello?" Cloud asked, not bothering to hide how odd he found the greeting. This most definitely was not Leon, which meant it had to be one of his adoptive kids. For some reason, Cloud had expected they would be more like Leon.

"Who's this?"

"Cloud Strife. Who are you?"

"No way! You're hu-- I mean, I'm Demyx. I'm known in the clubs as Big D. Not really, I just like saying it. Zexion, that's my boyfriend, hates it when I call myself that, so I don't. Oh! I'm watching this movie called Titanic right now, and it is _awesome_. Have you heard of it? Y'know, I really hope all these people don't die at the end. The Coast Guard needs to hurry up."

"Have you… have you never heard about the Titanic before?" the blonde questioned skeptically, wondering exactly what type of children Leon had taken in. "Nevermind. I'm calling for Leon. Is he there?"

"Leon? You wanna talk to Leon? Sure! You should've said something! LEON! Leon, Leon, Leon, Leon!"

Cloud winced as the screaming continued, now accompanied by the thud of feet as Demyx thundered to wherever Leon was hiding.

The blonde could make out a murmur of voices and the phone being transferred.

"Hello? Cloud? Sorry about Demyx answering."

"Oh, no. It's okay. It was… interesting."

"I usually let him get the telemarketers…"

"Oh, I understand."

Silence filled the line, each side waiting for the other to speak. There was a load squeak as Leon reclined in his computer chair; then the teacher cleared his throat. Leon hummed under his breath.

"Well, since I'm the one that called," Cloud finally chuckled, pacing around his living room with the handset squeezed tight in his hand. "I was wondering… um, I know it's late, but you said you worked at night, so if you're not too busy with that, there's this really good café with a bakery that's open all night by my house, and they have the best hot cocoa ever, and they even serve soup in those big bread bowls, and it has a great view of the faun fountain that's lit up at night, so… Just putting it out there. I know it's incredibly short notice, and I underst--"

"I'll see you there," Leon interrupted, saving Cloud from the extensive ramble that had been sure to come.

"You will?"

The vampire chuckled at the surprise in Cloud's voice. "Absolutely. I'm not doing anything productive right now. What's the address?"

* * *

**So there it is: Axel's a werewolf, Roxas is more pissed than usual, Sora's the target of some assassins, Riku is DX because of all the drama, and Cloud and Leon are on their way to have a second normal, human-y date. And Demyx is learning about the Titanic. **

**Please review for me?**


	9. Moon Snake

**Lengthy and full o' action and love for you guys. Sorry for taking so long… Massive computer problems on top of already being slow, y'know? **

"_I felt my slow blood warm.  
I longed to be that thing.  
The pure, sensuous form.  
And I may be, some time."_

_--- Snake, Theodore Roethke_

* * *

Ragnarok lumbered through the woods, thick branches snapping off of trees as he brushed against them. His stony body bore the scratches and scrapes without pain.

It wasn't hard to figure out where the Slayer lived-- this city was like a beacon for the undead and the unworldly. Luring the Slayer out would not be a problem. They were all easy enough to predict, easy enough to trick. They all had the same sense of justice and responsibility and righteousness. They were all the same.

He let his long, snakelike tail drag behind him, the spikes that spiraled around it raking up earth as he went. He sniffed the air, hungry and ready to begin implementing his method of drawing the Slayer up into the mountains.

It had been a long journey, but he was almost finished. The rocklike beast emitted a long, rumbling, pleased grunt. He swung his spike-covered fist around him happily, splintering trees like they were matchsticks.

* * *

At first, he'd hated this body-- what it had made him, what it meant, what he'd lost because of it. Axel was still bitter, but he couldn't remain angry and upset forever. He didn't despise himself like he used to. He didn't seethe at his own reflection every time he glanced down at the smooth black surface of a pond or into a mirror.

_Werewolf_. It had been like a death sentence to everything he loved most. What was worse-- he wasn't a wolf. He wasn't even the anthropomorphic werewolves of the movies-- a beast with fur and fangs and claws yet still manlike, still bearing some resemblance to a human. He was something unrecognizable, some kind of hellhound with a thick, muscled neck and clawed, human-shaped hands and night-vision equipped eyes.

The first week had been hell. He had constantly craved flesh and carnage, had dealt with the unceasing demands of the demonic beast he had to coexist with. And it _was_ demonic, without a doubt-- too needlessly cruel to be animal, too fond of chaos and destruction to be human.

Axel had sickened himself with the number of times he was tempted to attack Sora, his closest friend and his only source of comfort throughout all of this.

But things were slowly improving, thanks to Sora's constant aid and presence. The Slayer devoted a significant portion of his time to playing with him, to taking him on lengthy walks and romps through the forest, to sitting by his side in that small mausoleum and just talking to him. The human contact did the werewolf a world of good.

His wicked thoughts never became actions, and controlling both his transformations and his inner wolf became easier to do with time and practice. Soon he was even able to go back to living in his house and working at his bar, with the aid of cologne and copious amounts of "accidentally" spilled alcohol to disguise his new scent from the customers. Although, upon returning from his week-and-a-half absence, Axel wondered if such measures were even necessary-- the night that he reopened the bar was nothing short of a celebration of his very life. The place was as packed as a sardine can, and not a few vampires and demons had been compelled to hug, kiss and, in one case, propose to the redhead.

Luxord, who had spent the week, in his own words, "more painfully sober than that time rum got banned by his ol' captain", wept tears of joy at the bartender's return. The blonde vampire-- too frightened of exposing himself in a human bar to risk the punishment and blacklisted by every liquor store in the city limits for an unfortunate incident that had occurred while he was drunk the year before-- singlehandedly finished a bottle of rum and a bottle of brandy in one night.

Axel had never made so much money in one night in his whole life.

"Riku thinks it might be good if you try to find the local pack," Sora hesitantly suggested during one of their trips though the woods, walking quickly in order to keep up with the hip-high wolf's loping strides. "And I agree. I mean… it'll probably be helpful to talk to people who know what you feel like--"

Axel growled and swung his large head from side to side. He preferred not to speak while in wolf form. His voice didn't suit him at all-- too deep and growly.

Sora sighed hopelessly. "I know you're still… I know it still hurts, Ax. And I know you don't like being…one of them. But I want you to understand what's going on, and what's going to happen to you in the future. And I happen to be woefully uneducated when it comes to werewolves."

Axel paced quietly, his furry brows drawn together.

"No one gets born as a werewolf," Sora said quietly. "I'm sure there are plenty like you, who didn't get any say at all in their whole life changing. I think it would do you good to have someone to talk to about that."

"I can talk to you," Axel whined, his voice ending in a soft whimper.

"You can always talk to me, Ax. _Always_," the teen said emphatically, nodding furiously. "It's just that I might not always be the best listener or understander."

"Fine," the werewolf reluctantly agreed. "The next time a werewolf stumbles into the bar, I'll ask him where all the cool werewolves hang out. We can swap stories, listen to music, share recipes for raw meat…"

Sora shook his head and chuckled. "Oh… and I've been meaning to ask you this for a little while now…"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think I could-- just this one time-- maybe… possibly… ride on your back?"

Axel stopped and stared at the brunette; the boy's overly hopeful and excited expression was too much to turn down. "Just this one time. I'm not a werepony."

* * *

"How's it goin'?"

Axel briefly glanced up at the question, his expression blasé. "Good, I guess, considering no one has sniffed me out yet. But damn, all the vampire stench is _really_ starting to give me a headache. I had no idea they smelled so bad."

"Sorry about that," Sora said with a sympathetic wince. As he watched the bar owner preparing the place for tonight, he considered helping, but in the end decided he didn't feel like expending the effort to sort through bottles and boxes. Besides, Axel was handling things just fine. "Hopefully things will get better."

One corner of the redhead's mouth pulled upward. "Hopefully. Maybe I'll invest in nose plugs, eh?" He lugged a broken chair-- it had been one of his best, sturdy and heavy and practically ancient-- across the room and dumped it by the backdoor. He was seriously tired of raving drunks and bizarre demons demolishing his bar. "But thanks for, uh, everything."

"What, are you kidding?" Sora asked with a smile. He punched the slender man's shoulder, surprised again at how little Axel even noticed the blow. "You don't have to thank me. I'm always here for you." He hesitated and then put his hand on the werewolf's arm, squeezing gently.

"Okay, okay, that's enough touchy-feely for now," the redheaded bartender said with a strained smile, lifting the teen's hand from his arm.

"Touchy-feely?" the brunette mumbled to himself, pouting as he looked down at the 'touchy-feely' hand in question. He'd wrestled with Axel half-naked before and never gotten a brush off like that. Sora let his head hang down for a moment before following the redheaded man, who had started shifting boxes of liquor around in the unorganized storeroom. "Is there anything going on that I should be aware of?"

Axel straightened and scratched at his wrist as he thought back to last night's service at the bar. "Well, apparently there's some kind of shapeshifter up in Monroe Lake, but it's harmless, like Nessie. We should totally go swimming up there and try to ride it or something. Oh, and I overheard a couple of vampires talking about a street race they're going to have on that abandoned highway--"

"Oh my God," Sora said disgustedly, disappointed with how lame his city's vampires seemed to be.

"Yeah, I know. I bet they all finally saw The Fast and the Furious. They have, like, a six year lag when it comes to entertainment media."

"Really?"

"Really. Three weeks ago I met a vampire who'd _just_ seen Godzilla."

"That's sad."

"Yeah. I guess death does that to you… leaves you out of the loop." Axel made a small looping gesture with his index finger. "Oh! Hang on! Did you know there're nagas around here?"

"Snake-people? With snake tails?"

"Yesss," the redhead hissed excitedly, happy for a conversation that was just like old times.

"That's so freakin' cool," Sora said with an excited nod. Then he froze. "They don't eat people, do they? Do I have to fight them?"

"No, I don't think so. They haven't given you any trouble before, and I haven't heard anything about them attacking people-- hell, I've never heard _anything_ about them. But apparently they're in trouble. Getting picked off like pretty girls in a slasher movie."

"That was disgusting and distasteful." Sora snorted at the redhead's sense of humor.

The redhead smiled abashedly. "But really, they are. I feel bad. Snakes are cool."

"Hm. Well, it's worth checking out. Where are they, exactly?" Sora asked, already halfway out the door.

"You know those cliffs by the lake? Near that place where you went apeshit on that bear-spider-demon-thing?"

"Alright, I'll see you later! Thanks, Ax," the brunette called over his shoulder, eager to see a real live naga for the first time.

* * *

"I can't believe you dragged me out here like this--"

"Stop whining."

Riku groaned as a particularly pointy branch struck him in the thigh. Nature had never been a big interest for him-- he found it a bit overrated. Cities and places and people were far more entertaining and fun.

"I don't remember hearing anything about the Slayer being required to help _nagas_."

"Well, I don't _have_ to, but if I don't, who will? I don't care if they're not human. They need help. And besides, it's not like the Slayer rules say I can't help non-humans or anything."

Riku snorted. "Ah, Slayer, you're a bleeding heart. Sticking your neck out for things you don't even know…"

Sora pouted. "You say that like it's a bad thing."

"It definitely doesn't make things easy. But it is sort of adorable and endearing in a stupid, reckless way." The vampire then let out a string of curses in mixed languages as he bent to carefully pull his clothing from the thorns of a prickly bush he'd brushed against.

This was not fun. Not at all. Even with the Slayer here beside him, stalking around in the unruly woods to find some fretting nagas had a certain 'fun potential' limit that could not possibly be exceeded. They were at that limit. The limit would not be breached. This was as fun as it was going to get, unless Sora somehow ended up naked.

Riku liked that thought.

In his distraction, the vampire walked right into a spider web-- one complete with a black and yellow spotted spider that was at least the length of his thumb.

"I'm beginning to sympathize with the werewolf. No wonder he was in such a foul mood when I ran into you two that time," he growled, flicking the spider into the air and brushing off the clingy silvery threads.

"I think that 'foul mood' was caused by _you_," Sora teased, poking Riku in the side with the blunt end of his stake.

"Do that again and Mr. Pointy becomes Mr. Splinters," the vampire threatened, frowning as the teen laughed. He was much put off by the Slayer's light-hearted reaction to this threat.

The brunette finally stopped giggling-- something about the cold always made it hard for him to stop once he started laughing-- and frowned at the sulking vampire. "What's wrong with you?"

"…I'm hungry," he admitted after a few moments of stubborn silence. "It takes more animal blood than human blood to satisfy. I don't stay full as long on my new diet." He spat out the last word like it was inadvertently swallowed sour milk.

Sora bit his lip and edged away from the vampire.

"Oh, come on!" Riku huffed, turning on the teen and throwing his arms into the air. "What fucking hoops do I have to jump through to make you see that I'm _not_ going to eat you? What else does it take to get into your good graces, Slayer? _Tell me_ what to do!"

Sora stopped in his tracks.

Riku continued on for a dozen more paces, letting his anger simmer out. Then he faced the teen with slumped shoulders. "Sorry for the outburst," he said dejectedly.

The Slayer swallowed and shook his head, taking a few steps forward. "No… You're absolutely right. You don't drink human blood anymore, you don't hunt people anymore, you help me patrol, you train me, you help me with Axel now… it's pretty unfair of me to still treat you like you'll bite me at any moment."

Riku smiled a little at that. Recognition was nice, and appreciation was even better.

"Although, in my defense, I was mostly kidding. Plus, you're in a really sour mood. Being hungry does that to people."

Riku tilted his head to the side, cracking his neck irately. This would be a long hike.

* * *

Axel had never really thrown all that much consideration into things like fate and destiny. It wasn't that he didn't believe in them, or thought they were totally fake or anything, just that he didn't feel it mattered what he thought either way. So what if there was and so what if there wasn't?

But this… this was enough for him to stop and think, 'Hey, maybe there _are_ a couple of spinning goddesses up there yanking us around on threads.'

It was too coincidental.

An entire city! Miles and miles around every which way, and to run into _him_? And _here_ of all places! Just some random patch of woods behind the sketchy looking liquor and smokes store off the side of the highway. It couldn't just happen on its own, could it?

Why else would he have wandered back here to smoke, of all places? Why else would _he_ have been here, also, with the body of a vagrant-- dead before he'd even gotten to open the bottle of Smirnoff he'd just bought-- fresh at his feet?

"What are you doing here?" Roxas' eyes widened as he took in the new Axel, the _changed_ Axel-- even taller, if that was possible, but thicker now in his chest and arms, slightly more muscled in his waist. More powerful legs, slightly longer and well suited to running over long distances. His hands looked stronger, too, perfect for holding down struggling prey, for yanking limbs out.

When Roxas inhaled, he could _smell_ the heat exuding from the werewolf, musky and bitter and stinging. He shook involuntarily.

Axel was immobilized, his unlit cigarette dangling between his slightly parted lips as his eyes swept up and down the vampire with the buttery yellow hair. "Just picking up some cigarettes."

Roxas glanced at the plastic bags in the werewolf's hands. "Jesus. Got enough of them?" he asked disgustedly.

Axel glanced down at the bags and frowned at the cartons. "I've been smoking a lot more recently. It, uh, helps me stay calm."

Roxas turned his head and looked away.

"Roxas… I--"

"Don't waste your breath, dog," the blonde bit out, suddenly turning downright vicious. "I'm in no mood to talk to some stinking--"

"Well, I _am_ in the mood to talk, and I'm not letting you leave here until we do," the werewolf suddenly roared, throwing his bags to the ground, his own angry emotions kick-started by the vampire's.

The redhead didn't miss the flicker of fear across Roxas' features. He took a step back and breathed deeply through his nose.

"Roxas--"

"I _hate_ you," the blonde blurted out, grasping for a means to drive the werewolf away. "Are you so dense that you can't comprehend that yet?"

Axel fingered the silver-pink scar on his neck, the scar that Roxas had marked him with forever ago, it seemed.

"You say you hate me," Axel growled. "Not that you ever seemed too fond of me being human. But now you really hate me, huh?" he asked sarcastically, throwing up his arms and laughing. "And for something I can't help."

"Of course I hate you! Why wouldn't I? Even _Demyx_ doesn't like werewolves, and he's the kindest, fluffiest vampire that ever was. Why would I spit in the face of centuries of feuding and warfare and tradition by aligning myself with some disgusting were--"

"You said humans were disgusting, but that didn't keep you away from me then," the redhead countered, clenching his fists as well as his jaw.

"This is different," Roxas muttered, his expression appalled. "This isn't a matter of bad etiquette or off-kilter tastes in lovers-- this is borderline treason."

"I _really_ don't care!"

"Of course you don't care! Of course! You don't know what happens to treasonous vampires, and you don't care. Typical werewolf behavior! Why am I not surprised?"

"Because you always expect the worst of people, that's why." The steaming werewolf took a few breaths to calm down. "I'm sure you have your reasons to dislike werewolves in general, but don't lie to me. I'm not just some random werewolf, and I'm not a total idiot." Axel slumped his shoulders, which had grown even broader in the last week, and cocked his head to the side. "Don't lie. You still want me."

Roxas lashed out at the nearest object, which happened to be a tree. His fist left a deep indention, the wood splintered and cracked inward. Then he turned and stalked away, too furious to care that Axel followed with measured paces, never letting the distance between them grow any wider. "I'm not lying! I don't want anything to do with some wretched werewolf that--"

"I like you, Roxas." Axel kept his distance, but the look in his eyes vividly expressed his desire to be right beside the blonde. "Even though everyone is flipping their shit over a werewolf and a vampire being together, and even though vampire-scent still makes my nose burn like I snorted wasabi, and even though you've been pretending I don't exist… I still really, _really_ like you. Irrationally, maybe, but I've never been big on doing things that are rational. Part of why I'm in the business that I'm in, I guess. But I want you regardless of whether or not it's smart or right. So there." He leaned heavily against the tree that Roxas had attacked. "And I've gotten the feeling that you're the same way with me, so stop trying to keep away. You'll crack sooner or later, and my guess is sooner."

Roxas deflated almost imperceptibly. Axel knew that if he hadn't been a werewolf, equipped with eyes fast enough to catch every shift of their kind's natural enemy, he never would have seen it-- the blonde was back to his steely, haughty façade in an instant. Only now Axel could see that even that had its cracks.

"Well, you've gotten it wrong. I'm not… not…"

"Funny thing is, I've gotten a lot better at reading people lately. Even little enigmas like you." Axel slowly but adamantly advanced on the blonde, backing him into the trunk of a stout cedar.

Roxas was surprised by the man's initiative, left speechless as he was smoothly pinned against the rough bark. The clear green eyes that were focused solely on him were just as effective at paralyzing the blonde as were the crushing hands and hard body pressing him to the tree.

By the time Roxas started struggling, he already knew it was too late.

Using the newfound strength that bled over from his wolf-side, Axel grasped the vampire's thin wrists and pulled them up above the blonde's head. He smiled toothily as he snaked his own larger hands up over the vampire's, matching his fingertips against the blonde's and pressing them gently against the bark one by one.

"I didn't realize you could be so forward," the short blonde said breathily, his throat tight. He struggled against the redhead briefly, testing his strength against the new werewolf's and confirming his suspicion that he was not a match for him when it came to pure physical power.

Axel nuzzled the blonde when he saw his pale lower lip quiver minutely. "I'm not going to hurt you, Roxas. You can trust me on that."

"Trust a werewolf," the vampire scoffed, rolling his eyes nervously.

"No, trust _me_."

The redheaded werewolf kept Roxas pinned as he kissed him, softly at the very beginning, quickly turning rough and urgent with uncontrollable lust. Axel tasted him all over-- lips, neck, cheeks, ears, jaw and everywhere else in between. It wasn't long before the vampire was kissing back, as hard and desperate as the werewolf, and Axel was confident that he could let go of the blonde without worrying about him running off or lashing out.

'_For all his talk about despising werewolves,'_ Axel thought amusedly as he and Roxas toppled onto the ground, the blonde still weakly fighting for dominance, _'he still kisses me like he used to.'_

Roxas hurriedly pulled the larger man's shirt off over his head, his sharp, diamond-hard nails leaving red trails on the werewolf's sides as he did.

"Watch the nails," the redhead growled, pushing the blonde down against the cold, leave-strewn earth and removing his clothing in a somewhat gentler manner.

Roxas ran his hands up the werewolf's sides, trailing his fingertips over the scratches as they sealed up within seconds. "Like a few scratches could even faze you at this point," he panted as he was hurriedly stripped by those oversized, blazing hot hands.

If either was bothered by the fierce, biting wind or the freezing dirt they laid in, if either could even feel it, they didn't acknowledge. They heard and felt nothing but each other.

Roxas hadn't felt this alive since his human years. Axel's skin-- unbelievably hot, more smothering and sweltering than he'd ever been before-- slipped and stuck against his own, making the blonde gasp every time the surging heat receded and cold air came between them. The blonde could barely focus on anything but the feel of the man on top of him, in him, against him, with him; his tender and forceful touch, his lips on his neck, his warm murmurs of 'beautiful' against every inch of cold, porcelain skin.

The vampire curled up against the redhead's side when they had finished, basking in the radiant heat. He laid his lead on the werewolf's taut, flat chest, feeling his hair cling to the man's sweat-slicked skin.

At some other time, he would have made a comment about the wet dog smell. But for now, Roxas didn't find the scent too appalling. The blonde shuddered as he realized that he actually might not mind it that much after all.

"Cold?" Axel asked with an arched brow. Without waiting for an answer, he looped an arm around the small blonde and pressed him closer to his side.

"Of course not. You're an oven," Roxas mumbled quietly against Axel, wanting to hit him for asking such a stupid question. He didn't move from the man's side, regardless.

"Ah. Right." The werewolf used his free hand to brush away the chunks of scarlet hair that still clung to his forehead and the back of his neck.

The vampire peered up at the redhead with a tired pout. "But I wouldn't mind going inside anyway, if we went to your place," he said quietly, secretly longing for the redhead's bed, with its worn-in, freshly washed sheets and variety of soft pillows-- including an extra squishy, sequined, hot pink, microbead pillow that was about a thousand times more comfortable than any goose down pillow he'd ever had, living or dead. He was very fond of that pillow, and he was fairly sure that Axel knew it.

But he didn't long for Axel's new scent, which he was sure had permeated everything by now, dominating and replacing that fresh, slightly spiced smell that his bed _used_ to have. It was too bad.

"Mmm. We _could_ use a shower," Axel mused, glancing down at the dirt and leaves that clung to their drying bodies.

"What, afraid of a little dirt?" Roxas thought back to the recent time that he'd been forced to bury himself before sunrise. It had taken _days_ to get all the dirt off.

One the vampire's small, frosty hands snaked up to rest on the angular plane of Axel's cheek. He met the werewolf's eyes and smiled. "Fine. But only if you carry me."

* * *

"I don't like caves. Bad things go down in caves."

"Not this again…"

"You're the one who took me into the last one! Do you remember what happened?"

Riku sighed. "_You're_ the one who's all concerned for the snake people. _You're_ the one who dragged me along. _You're_ the one who never bothered to ask about where they lived specifically--"

"Okay! Fine!" Sora edged along the mouth of the cave. He looked back at the vampire hesitantly. "Are you sure they're in there? Absolutely sure?"

Riku crossed his arms. "No. It's entirely possible that I might be mistaking the scent of an eight foot long serpent-human with a bear or a deer or something." He stared at the brunette.

Sora gulped. "Do you think there'll be roaches this time?"

"Oh, for Heaven's sake," the grey-clad vampire said exasperatedly, brushing past the teen.

"Wait for me!" Sora took no chances this time; he latched onto Riku's arm, walked practically on top of his feet, clung to him for dear life.

Riku tried to decide which was more powerful-- the good feeling from the boy's body being so close and warm and trusting, or the aggravated feeling from having his feet periodically stepped on and nearly being tripped several times within one minute.

The floor of the tunnel-like cave was smooth and worn, while the upper parts were jagged and uneven. It descended rapidly at some times, made sharp turns, and occasionally narrowed to only allow them through one at a time. If it hadn't been for the eerie blue lights-- fueled by something other than electricity or batteries-- that were strung along the ceiling, Sora was certain they would have stumbled into an injury at some point.

Finally they ended up in an expansive space, one nearly the size of the gym at his school. They crossed the enormous cavern, picking through jutting stalagmites and rubble; the space grew tighter as they drew close to a small opening to a tunnel near the back of the room.

Down, down, down. This tunnel felt more vertical than horizontal, and Sora wondered how they would get back out. Sora noticed that even Riku, who easily outmatched him in areas of grace and balance, had some trouble navigating the tight, heavily sloped space.

So when Sora stumbled and fell, it wasn't hard for him to take the normally poised and agile vampire with him.

"Dammit, Slayer," he hissed as they laid on the floor of another cavernous room, entwined in a painful tangle of limbs. He wiggled a little so that Sora's elbow wouldn't be poking him quite so hard in the side.

"Sorry." The brunette sighed and laid his head down on the vampire's chest. "I can't feel my arm, Riku," he whispered.

"That's because it's underneath me."

"Oh. Oh, okay. Can you, like… move? Or somethi--"

"Yeah, if you get off of--"

"You're on my legs--"

"Well your knee is in my stomach!"

Sora and Riku both glanced up at the sound of hissing, the struggle to disentangle themselves momentarily forgotten. A number of nagas, at least eight of them, were watching with varying expressions of fear, interest, distrust, and anger. And one in the back seemed to be laughing.

"H-hi," the Slayer greeted weakly, freeing one arm enough to wave at the creatures. The movement seemed to be a mistake-- every one of the nagas tensed at the action, as if expecting an attack.

"Oh, sorry, sorry! No, I'm the Slayer--"

They recoiled, their thick, muscular tails sweeping across the floor agitatedly.

"No! No! Not to slay _you_! I'm here to help you! I like snakes! And people-snakes!"

"Do you speak human?" Riku interrupted from his place under Sora.

"I do," one of the nagas said quickly, coiling up on his tail so that he could see over his companions in front of him. "So do some of the others, but most just know Greek and Hindi and Old English. A handful of us know your language."

Sora recognized the naga as the one who had been snickering at their argument from the back of the room. His lower half was covered in black scales that had a blue sheen, and his upper half was dark-skinned and thinly muscled, as slender and sinuous as his snake half.

Riku groaned. The English-speaking naga had a bright, slightly lopsided smile that distinctly reminded him of _Demyx_. He hoped that there wasn't enough room in this world for two people like his brother.

"I'm Sora and this is Riku." The brunette poked the silver-haired man in the shoulder to make it clear who was who.

"I'm Taru." He spread his arms open in a gesture of welcome. "And this is the twelfth Clan of Chandravanshi."

"Uh-huh. Wow, that's nice. So… I heard that there was something happening to you guys up here, so I thought I'd come see if there's anything I can do to help," Sora said calmly, finally managing to free himself from Riku and standing. He offered a hand down to the vampire, who gave him a nonchalant look and then stood up on his own.

"Yes… you heard correctly."

"We don't need help from the Slayer," one of the other nagas said bitterly from behind them. She then said something in a harsh, hissing tongue and a number of the others murmured in agreement.

Taru turned and replied in the same tongue, waving his fellow nagas away. They retreated with much agitated hissing. "Ignore them. Pride is usually the flaw that brings down our kind."

"Yeah, I know some people like that," Riku said with a sniff. "So what's been going on here that has all of you so on edge?"

The thin naga grimaced and slouched back on his tail, his eyes downcast. "We've lost four of our people in the last week."

"'Lost'?" Sora questioned.

"We… we aren't sure what happened to any of them. But they would leave to go hunting or to gather materials and they never came back. This kind of thing has never happened to us before."

"Are you sure they didn't just leave?" Riku asked as he leaned against a section of smoothed wall.

"N-no," Taru said softly, shaking his head. "They left lovers and children and families behind. No one would do that-- let alone four all at once like this. But no, it isn't like that."

"Well… I guess it can't hurt to look around up top, right?" Sora asked gently.

"We have already done that." A particularly large and displeased-looking naga stared at them, squaring his shoulders imposingly. "Your assistance is not needed here."

Riku stepped up behind Sora, locking eyes with the lightly-bearded, heavily tattooed naga and bared his teeth warningly.

"Oh, don't worry about Anik. He's simply… protective." Taru explained, trying to calm the vampire. "Of our clan's reputation," he added in a whisper as the muscular Anik slithered out of the room, casting a dark look back at the two visitors as he left.

"I'd say the rising body count is a little more pressing than preserving reputation," Riku muttered sourly.

The small naga frowned slightly and furrowed his brow. "It's not that the warriors don't care, it's just that… well, you're a vampire from a noble line, aren't you?"

Riku's eyes widened and his lips parted in surprise at the astute observation.

"You understand how it is. No one wants the elders and the higher ups to look on them poorly…" Taru said with a crooked smile. "Now, if you would really like to search topside, we have another tunnel to the surface through here. It is, um… a bit less arduous than the one you took to get here." He shrugged, as if to say, 'Sorry about how you almost snapped your necks coming down that main entrance'.

"Noble?" Sora mouthed to the vampire as they followed Taru out of the room and through a series of smaller rooms, which all had walls heavily decorated with paint and gold leaf and more dully glowing lights. "I don't think you told me about that," the teen added in a whisper.

Riku shook his head and pressed his finger to his lips. When Sora continued to pester him, he very deliberately reached over and pinched the Slayer's lips together. "_Later_," he grated out.

"Here is the entrance to the tunnel up," Taru said, gesturing to the gaping hole before them. "We use it for bringing down large loads, so it has to be wider with more of a gentle and regular incline--"

A sudden roar of hisses silenced the black-scaled naga, who shrunk back from the noise.

"They do not need to hear our secrets," Anik said sternly as he led a group of four nagas toward them, looking directly at Sora and Riku as he spoke. His long, dark hair was pulled back and he carried a sturdy-looking spear. Most of nagas that surrounded him were similarly armed, and all had the same muscular build. "We will go with you in case you find the source of our problems."

Sora nodded. There was an awkward silence as he fidgeted, unsure of how to proceed and frightened of upsetting the lightly armed nagas in any way.

Anik jerked his spear in the direction of the tunnel impatiently. "You go first. We will follow you up."

Riku started moving first, walking past the group of warriors and into the tunnel with his head held high, and the smaller brunette took swinging strides to catch up. Sora mouthed a shy 'hi' as they passed Anik, who glowered in response.

"Yikes!" the teen whispered to the vampire as they made their way into the carved out tunnel. "He could probably boil water with his eyes."

"Nagas have very good hearing," Riku responded quietly.

Sora's body tightened up as he caught the sound of bellies sliding against earth not too far behind. He pressed his lips together and didn't speak until they reached the fresh air of the surface.

The tunnel opening, which was mostly concealed behind a boulder and some tall bushes, led to an expansive clearing. Knee-high grasses filled the field, shimmering weakly in the moonlight, while the tree line loomed darkly far off in the distance. The earth was very gently inclined for being on the slope of a low mountain.

"Let's start looking, then," Riku said stiffly, ready to get down to business and end the night as early as possible. He turned to Anik. "In what directions have you already--"

There was a shriek of breaking wood and snapping branches from the woods, sending a cluster of birds flying and startling the small group. Trees groaned as they tipped and crashed to the forest floor.

"What was that?" Sora asked lowly, his face darkening.

Every pair of eyes in the group watched the treetops, following the path of the bending, falling trees as it grew closer. The ground shook more strongly with each second.

Time seemed to freeze as a massive beast burst through the treeline, fragments of wood flying forward like sea spray. The creature stood at least three stories tall, with a blocky head resting on its spiky, armored body. The armor reminded Sora of an ankylosaur, which he remembered from the dozens of dinosaur books his parents had bought for him when he was little. Two clawed, elephant-like feet held up the lumbering body.

As it drew closer, Sora's stomach plummeted; a long, thin, limp body dangled from one of its clumsy hands, and a giant club dragged along the ground in the other. Its long arms swung freely, as if it was excited or happy. The naga people watched in horror as the creature flung the body forward, across the space that separated them. The broken, half-consumed body of one of their kind thudded against the cliffside and then rolled down to rest beside them. The head and limbs were gone, scales missing, the body bent in ways that suggested snapped and twisted bones.

"Go back down! Get inside!" the Slayer screamed to the warriors, who seemed too entranced by the disgusting affair to move.

Two heeded him and slithered hurriedly back into the small cave entrance, while Anik and the other two stubbornly refused, writhing furiously as they stared down their dead companion and the massive beast that had killed him. It wasn't until the creature lashed out at them with its tail-- long, thick, and heavily barbed with spikes-- that they turned back to the cave, dragging the body down with them and shouting frantically at each other as they went.

Sora and Riku moved to defend the front of the cave; the vampire swallowed stiffly as he saw the rows of five inch punctures in the earth left by the lethally spiked tail.

"I'll watch your back, Slayer," Riku told the teen as he tugged a long, narrow blade from his side.

"Oh, I know. I've caught you doing that a lot recently, actually." His hands were shaking despite the smug, only slightly abashed smile he gave Riku.

Riku couldn't hide his amusement at Sora's comment-- he'd underestimated the boy's observational improvement, obviously-- but he tried to speak seriously. "I won't let anything happen to you, Sora."

Sora apprehensively tightened and loosened his grip on the two medium sized swords he'd brought, wishing he had thought to carry some larger, stronger weapons. He hadn't wanted to frighten or offend the naga by bringing anything too unwieldy-- and look where that had gotten him. _'If only I'd had some idea that we'd be facing something of this magnitude.'_

"_Ragnarok_," the creature groaned, his rocky skin making harsh scraping sounds as he swung his overly large arms back and forth loosely. The spikes protruding from the backs of his hands raked the ground, leaving shallow gouges in the earth. "_Slayer_."

"Another one," Riku said darkly, his jaw tightening. "An assassin. I've heard of this one before."

"Heard of it?"

"Just from old legends. He was used to punish rebellious vampire clans." Riku twirled his wrist, letting his jagged-edged sword spin in wide circles as he watched Ragnarok watching them. "I thought the Palliata had done away with him. And I never would have imagined they would use him against a Slayer. Maybe they're trying to send us a message…"

"You think? Hey, uou take the front, I'll take the back?" Sora suggested as he tried to let Riku's words pass over him, tried not to think about how terrifically _bad_ it was for an assassin to have a reputation that preceeded it from ancient times.

"Sounds good." Riku sidestepped to the right, facing off with the mountainous beast, as Sora slipped around the back.

The small brunette narrowly dodged Ragnarok's swinging tail; it passed close enough to his head for some of the dirt and blades of grass that were clinging to it to fall onto his hair and shoulders. Sora tried to check on Riku, but one of the assassin's giant, trunk-like legs was blocking his sight.

Sora set to work, hacking and chopping at the back of the creature's legs, aiming to cut a tendon and immobilize it. But it was like beating against a lead wall with a wooden bat-- within moments his first sword had bent and dulled without so much as chipping the hard exterior covering Ragnarok.

He flung the useless weapon to the side and jabbed the second one in point-first, cursing as the tip snapped off inside a small crevice between two plates of the beast's stony armor.

Sora dodge rolled to the side as he heard the tail whizzing by again, and once he sprang back up, he had a clear view of Riku, who was trying to distract the behemoth.

Though it happened in less than a second, what Sora saw seemed to drag on agonizingly slowly. Ragnarok's spike studded tail whipping through the air, too fast for Riku to have turned and seen or Sora to have warned him, hitting the vampire from the back, the thin, whip-like end of the tail swinging forward and wrapping around his front, winding around his body like jagged barbed wire.

The vampire looked down, unmistakably surprised at the barbs that had pierced him in his chest and sides and back.

Ragnarok tightened the muscles in his tail, driving the spikes in deeper; Riku seemed to snap, going limp in the assassin's grip. He remained limp as he was flung him toward the trees and hit the ground with a weak thud, only stopping after a few rolls. A smear of blood covered the grass that he'd rolled across, dark and slick in the moonlight.

Sora paused, waiting for the vampire to get up.

"Riku." Sora took a shaky step toward his friend, only to be greeted by a glowing yellow eye the size of a tire.

Hot, raspy breath wheezed out of the gaping hole of Ragnarok's mouth, hitting Sora squarely and making his hair and clothes flap backward in the wind. With his head lowered to the ground, Ragnarok stared at Sora, eye-to-eye, for a good few seconds.

The Slayer seethed at the dumb yellow eyes, convinced that if he had even a toothpick it would be enough of a weapon for him now; he'd never felt so much rage or such a craving for violence-- it was almost palpable, almost something he could _taste_, how much he wanted to tear this thing apart in the most brutal way possible.

A sharp whistle was all Sora heard before the giant lance flew past him and pierced one of the yellow eyes, making it leak with white. The creature screamed and slammed its fist at Sora, but the brunette was already on the move, too overcome by adrenaline and fear and anger to hesitate at all.

The Slayer took the first opportunity he saw, jumping up to grab the end of the deeply embedded lance and using it to propel himself upward and onto the top of the assassin's head. More spears and arrows flew past him, most bouncing off of the armored skin or flying off into the air, but Sora paid them no mind. He halfheartedly noticed the dozen or so nagas throwing them-- they had returned with piles of projectile weapons including bows and arrows and piles of spears-- but he was more concerned with making use of the tools they'd given him.

The Slayer hung on to a ridge of horn at the top of the assassin's squarish head as Ragnarok quaked and shook, trying to dislodge him. Soon the creature forgot all about him and instead turned to the naga, who continued to pelt him with blades and small bundles of explosives, slamming his fist down and making them scatter.

Sora snatched a hurtled spear as it clattered off of stony skin and used it for assistance as he carefully slid down Ragnarok's neck and onto his shoulders. The teen wasn't sure what he was looking for exactly, but after so many of Riku's impromptu lessons on anatomy-- which were very similar for vampires and humans-- he had a good idea of where to start, even if this wasn't his usual encounter.

He perched on the shoulder and waited for Ragnarok to turn his head to the side; Sora then took a clear shot, driving the spear as hard as he could into a crevice behind the ear, just where the skull met the neck. The resilient spear managed to piece the softer skin with little resistance.

The results were satisfying, with a gush of blackish blood surging out and running down onto the ground, where it splashed and steamed.

The naga hooted and hollered, screaming battle cries and encouragement, reinvigorated by the Slayer's success, and renewed their attacks at the beast's legs and stomach.

Sora dislodged the spear and waited for Ragnarok's head to turn again. Soon enough, the assassin twisted his neck, trying to see his attacker, and Sora smashed the spear down into the joint in front of the ear with enough force to smash it and knock the jaw bone loose. The pained bellow it emitted was short-lived-- another spear was hurled hard enough by one of the nagas to pierce the underside of its jaw, going clear into the tongue and pinning it to the roof of the creature's mouth.

Sora held on to the shoulder as Ragnarok began to sway unsteadily; moments later the beast tumbled to the ground, with Sora jumping to avoid the impact and then hitting the ground rolling. The fall was still jarring. As he lay in the grass, finally still and out of danger, Sora felt the stinging and aching grow as the adrenaline wore off and he grew too exhausted to let emotions fuel him.

His shoulder, the one that he had landed on, hurt worst of all, but there didn't seem to be a place on his body that wasn't screaming. The teen could feel warm stickiness spread all over his back and realized that it was _his_ blood and wondered when he'd gotten cut, because he honestly didn't remember that part.

Moans continued to come weakly from Ragnarok, but it didn't seem to concern the naga. As the rest cheered and enthusiastically slithered forward to finish off the assassin, several came to help Sora up and offer him thanks and help for his gashes and bruises.

"N-no," he said forcefully as he pulled himself up into a standing position, using Anik's offered arm for balance. "Get Riku! Where's Riku? He got thrown over by the trees. He's hurt, and bleeding, and I--"

"Nshhh," Anik told him, covering Sora's lips with a dark, blood stained finger. He shouted over to the celebrating group in his own language, and they dispersed immediately, rushing toward the trees. "We will take care of that. You must rest."

"No, I'm going to-- ungh…"

Sora couldn't protest as he was lifted into the strong naga's arms and carried to the cave entrance, where Taru and a number of other nagas, most of them female, sat with bowls of clear blue liquid and strips of tan cloth.

Sora gasped as he was laid on a woven wood stretcher and then gently rolled onto his stomach. He winced as soaked bandages were laid across his back and down his arms-- to cover more cuts and scrapes he didn't remember getting-- but was thankful for the cool, soothing relief they offered. Then he was turned onto his back so that a young female naga could sprinkle a pearly powder into his mouth and then wash it down with strong tasting water from the rivers of the caves.

"Wha--"

"It is medicine," Taru said reassuringly, wiping Sora's face with a wet cloth and brushing his bangs from his eyes. "It's made from a plant that only grows--"

"Riku?" Sora's eyes widened as the vampire's body was carefully lowered onto the stretcher next to his.

The brunette felt his insides compress with dread when he saw that the vampire's chest wasn't rising and falling-- and then berated himself for being so stupid.

"Is he… still…"

"Vampires turn to dust when they die, whether it is by staking, decapitation, or bleeding out. As long as he is here, he is savable," a wizened naga woman informed him as she started wrapping Riku's wounds-- his entire body, really-- with the strips of cloth dipped in the blue liquid. "He has almost no blood left, though."

"Is there somewhere I can get him some?" Sora asked urgently. From this close he could see how different Riku looked; his skin was dull and almost see-through, his face sunken and his body frail.

"Naga blood sickens vampires, and since he is a vampire, the medicine we gave you will not work for him," she said with a shake of her head.

Sora furrowed his brows. "The medicine…"

"It is to replenish lost blood. It has worked for humans in the past, so we knew it would be safe for you."

"Oh. Do you have more?" he asked urgently, propping himself up on one elbow.

"Yes, but you were given plenty to restore what you--"

"Here we go," Sora said softly as he leaned across to Riku, putting his wrist across the cold, white lips.

The old naga woman opened her mouth to protest but shut it again after receiving a sharp glare from the boy. She snorted and slithered back into the cave, hissing grumpily at the other nagas as she went.

Sora frowned at Riku's lack of responsiveness and searched for a knife or dagger; he settled for a sharp splinter of wood and drove it hard into his left wrist, wincing at the fresh wound. He quickly slid the bleeding cut against the vampire's lips and sighed as he finally felt a response.

An icy tongue weakly probed the wound and then suddenly, with much more strength than the Slayer had expected, Riku began lapping and sucking at the offered limb, his eyes still shut and his body, for the most part, still unmoving.

Moments later Sora was already feeling woozy. He tried to pull his arm free but was stopped by a cold, viselike grip on his arm.

Riku clutched to his wrist, keeping it in place over his mouth despite the Slayer's struggling to pull away. The brunette teen gasped as the wound began to sting and ache with cold.

"You should not jeopardize yourself." Anik forced the vampire's hands from Sora's arm and the boy pulled away hurriedly.

Sora's mouth tightened as he watched Riku turn fitfully, still unconscious, reaching and gasping for more. One of his steely hands dug into the earth as he writhed.

"Is there some way you could get an animal for him?" Sora questioned hopefully, looking up at the powerful naga that was looming over them both.

Anik blocked out the light from the moon and torches that had been set up around the cave entrance, silhouetting him. "No. The beast scared everything away. We searched, but the woods are still silent."

"Is he okay, though? Did… will he be better now that I, y'know… ugh," Sora laid back down onto the wood fiber stretcher and pressed a hand to his suddenly aching head, waiting for the pain to subside. He squeezed his eyes shut and moaned. If Axel were here, he'd have Aleve. Axel _always_ had Aleve.

Cobalt eyes shot open as he felt another hand against his skin, warm and large enough to cradle his whole head, it seemed. He glanced up to see slit-like amber eyes and waves of long, dark hair that were matted with blood. The boy stayed perfectly still, except for his eyes, which widened and focused on the hand touching the left side of his face. "Uh, Anik?"

The naga drew back awkwardly. "He is not in immediate danger but he can't begin to heal until he gets more blood back in his system," he said quickly.

"In other words, small amounts of blood will keep him from dying for now, but it's like constantly refilling a leaking bucket. His wounds will keep letting it out before it can do any real good," Taru explained as he approached, two blankets in his hands along with a cup of water. "Although, to your credit, Slayer blood seems to be helping him along quite a bit."

Anik gave the two a small bow and then slithered back to the group of warriors, who were busy collecting their scattered weapons from the battlefield. Sora could see some scattered knives and arrows glinting to his right if he looked out of the corner of his eye.

He didn't look up as he felt the blanket being laid over him, but he did turn his head to the side when he heard the other being put on top of Riku.

'_At least he's still now,' _the teen thought tiredly.

"I saw Anik with you," Taru said with a sly smile. "He respects you very much now."

"Now? What did I do to get that to happen?"

"He and the others are warriors. They are impressed with how bravely you acted in battle, at how good you were. But I think it's mostly because they couldn't have done what you did," he added in a whisper. "Tails, you know…" He flicked his own for emphasis. "Not so good for jumping and climbing."

"Oh." Sora stifled a chuckle, but it was so weak he wondered why he'd even bothered trying to cover it up. "Well, I guess respect isn't so bad."

The young naga made a noise of agreement. "I think he likes you, also."

Sora blushed and shook his head. "N-no, I d-don't think so."

"Oh. Well, he does," Taru said with a shrug. "He's a good person. I think you would get along very well."

The Slayer covered his face, trying to block out what the naga was saying, although bits and pieces like, 'it's worked before with human mates in the past' and 'he has a roomy cave' and 'can swallow a bass whole' somehow worked their way though his mental barrier.

Taru seemed to finally pick up on Sora's discomfort. "Ah… do you already have someone special?"

"No, not really. I'm not exactly, uh, debonair--"

"You glanced at your vampire friend when I asked you just now," Taru said with furrowed brows.

Sora was taken aback. "So?"

"It makes sense," the slender naga said with an understanding nod and a mischievous smile. "I mean, it's unusual, but you two seem very close. I'll be back with food for you to eat in a few minutes," Taru stated with a smile, speaking over Sora's exhausted protests over his relationship with Riku.

The teen stubbornly looked up at the sky, planning on showing Taru and all the other naga just how long he could go without looking at Riku, since apparently to them just glancing at someone meant you were lovestruck.

But looking away didn't keep him from thinking about the vampire, and when he relived the past hour or so in his mind, especially the moment where Riku had-- for the first time that Sora could remember-- seemed as vulnerable to death as any human, he felt guilty for turning away.

So Sora rolled gingerly onto his side, facing the sleeping vampire. He reached out to wipe the drying, flaking blood from Riku's silver hair and paused with the strands still wrapped around his hand.

"Don't worry, Riku. I'll take care of you," he told the stone-still vampire as he pressed his hand against the side of his face, hoping that the warmth would help, as little as it was. "I won't let anything else happen to you," he said as he shook his head.

"It wasn't your fault, you know," Taru interjected from behind him, startling the teen and nearly making him elbow himself in the stomach as he withdrew the telltale hand as quickly as possible.

"Geez," Sora sighed, pressing his hand over his chest and feeling it beating like a hummingbird's.

"Oh? Did I do that, or was it from being close to your love--"

"Would you let it go?" the brunette huffed loudly, crossing his sore arms irately. "It's complicated, okay? I don't… it's like…"

"I won't pry. Here," he said with a warm smile, setting a platter down in between Sora and Riku. "There are roasted newts, fresh fishes, snails, a roasted rabbit, and--"

"Actually, I think it's time I go," Sora interrupted softy. "It sounds delicious and all, but it's going to take a while to carry Riku out of here, so I'd better get started before I have to start worrying about sunrise."

The smaller naga looked disappointed. "Right, right… we understand. But you'll come and visit, yes? There will be a feast any time you return."

Sora smiled weakly as he surveyed the questionable food on the platter and nodded.

* * *

"Sorry it's a mess," the redhead apologized as soon as they set foot inside.

"I wasn't expecting an immaculate alter, Axel," Roxas said reassuringly, well aware of the werewolf's nervousness. The man couldn't stop fidgeting if his life depended on it.

Axel embarrassedly started picking up old, gnawed on bones from the floor and threw the dirty clothes scattered around the living room into one pile. "I'll be right back, okay? I'm just going to go throw the trash out. I'll be back up in a minute."

Roxas smiled as the redhead left, but as soon as the door closed he gagged and ran to the window. He threw it open and panted into the cold, fresh air, trying to clear his nose of the overwhelming smell. "Bloody hell. Needs some Febreeze or something… one of those ionic fans that gets all the pet smells and cigarette smoke," he murmured to himself, already planning a trip to the mall to stock up on scented candles, fans, and whatever else was necessary to air out the apartment and then mask any lingering smells.

'_By himself, Axel really doesn't smell all that bad,'_ the blonde thought to himself as he prepared to face the room again. _'But when it gets all cooped up like this, ugh. It's terrible.'_

Roxas left the window open, hoping it would somehow suck the smell out, and decided to head to the bedroom to at least salvage the squishy pink pillow. If it hadn't already absorbed too much of the smell, then it could still be saved.

Roxas covered his nose and mouth as he sped down the hall. He opened the door to the redhead's bedroom and gasped.

"Roxas? Ro-- did I leave that window open? Huh. So out of it lately… Roxas? Roxas," the werewolf said contentedly as he stood behind the blonde, who was stock-still in the doorway to his room. "There you are."

The vampire turned to look at Axel, and the redhead was stunned to see what looked like _tears_ in those cornflower blue eyes. "Roxas? Are you al--"

"What-- why is it--"

"Oh, the bedroom?" Axel asked with raised eyebrows, peering over and around the blonde and into his room. "Well, I remembered how much you always liked my room, especially the smell-- you adorable little weirdo-- and I didn't want to mess it up, so… Once I came back here, I shut that door-- and stuffed a towel under the crack at the bottom, so nothing would leak in-- and I slept out in the living room."

The redheaded werewolf leaned against the doorframe, careful not to intrude into the scent-preserved room, and watched with a smile as Roxas paced around the room in awe. The blonde picked up one of his pillows-- _'The pink one, of course', _Axel thought-- and hugged it to his chest, burying his face into the fabric and inhaling.

"Do you like it?"

Roxas looked up and smiled. He stuffed the small pillow into a plastic bag that was on the desk beside the bed and tied the handles shut. "Do you care if we get the bed dirty?"

"What?" the werewolf asked with a laugh.

"We're still covered in dirt. Do you care if we get on your bed without taking a shower first?" Roxas asked urgently, crossing the room and standing in front of the doorway.

Axel squinted. "You know that… doing that would ruin… everything in this room for you."

The blonde shook his head. "No. I can't ask you to keep sleeping out in your living room just so I can keep smelling the old you. This is the new you. If I can handle you being a werewolf, then I can handle a little smell. I know I must not be a trip through the tulips for your nose either. So I can deal with the smell-- as long as the pillow stays safe."

"As long as the pillow stays safe?" the redhead repeated with a grin, growling playfully as Roxas grabbed his wrists and tugged him into the room.

"The pillow is all I ask," Roxas assured him as they fell back on the bed. He closed his eyes and breathed in both scents-- new and old as they mingled-- of the man.

"I happen to like that pillow a lot, too, you know," Axel murmured impishly as he slowly peeled the vampire's shirt up, kissing each portion of the pale, flat stomach as it was revealed.

"Oh my _God_, are you seriously going to argue with me over the pillow?" the vampire asked in aggravation, sitting up suddenly and pushing the werewolf back. "It's _one_ thing, Axel! One--"

"I kid, I kid," the werewolf chuckled, pushing Roxas back down and kissing his cheek warmly. "I would gladly give you a hundred of those damn pillows if it made you happy."

Roxas pulled Axel close and breathed in deeply, committed to learning to love this new scent as much as the old one.

* * *

**I don't think it's physically possible for me to write good, solid angst. This chapter was supposed to be wayyy angsty and dark and dramatic, but I'm starting to realize that I'm not really good at that.**

**1) And I can't remember if I've said this before, but I know that vampire lore is all like, "Vampires don't have reflections!" but I don't like that, so, uh, these ones do.**

**2) I cop out of sex scenes a lot. I think this chapter showcased the extent of my ruhmance writing abilities. **

**Review please? I may or may not be able to use internet when I get back on campus, so it may take a while, but I'll be trying to reply.**


	10. Oceanus

**Extra grateful thanks to combo-bass for betaing! And thanks to CloudedMirror (thanks for pointing out that error, cause I'm about to go back and fix it!) and TheRecorder-- reinstating reviewer dedications! (Not sure where they went for a while but eh…)**

"_Blow of an ax,_

_pine scent,_

_the winter woods."_

_---Blow of an ax, Yosa Buson_

* * *

Leaving the nagas proved to be harder than anticipated. They relentlessly begged Sora to stay, and after he politely turned them down a few times, he was flooded with offerings of food and treasures, ranging from elaborate silk scarves to golden body ornaments to rose glass tea cups. Perhaps some other time, he'd assured them.

Anik himself had presented Sora with the spear that the Slayer had used in the fight-- which had originally been one of Anik's most prized weapons, apparently-- saying that he'd employed it admirably and therefore deserved to keep it.

Sora had enthusiastically agreed to take the weapon-- blushing abashedly as the warriors laughed amongst themselves at his poorly concealed excitement-- along with a hefty amount of their blood replenishing medicine. The spear was amazingly strong, so imbued with ancient magic that he could feel the warmth and subtle reassurance it exuded as he held it now. It was little wonder that it had been one of the few weapons able to survive the fight unharmed, despite the pivotal role it played.

Sora had, however, turned down Anik's offer for the warriors to escort him, which was a decision he was seriously questioning as he now descended the mountain. He let out a slew of curses as a patch of rocks loosened and rolled out from under his feet, making him hop-shuffle-hop awkwardly over to a sideways log until the stones stopped rolling.

Riku was bundled in blankets and strapped to the Slayer's back; the smaller boy hunched over under the weight of the larger body, breathing heavily. He used the shaft of the spear as a walking stick as he descended the sloping, wooded mountainside, hissing whenever the pain in his body flared up again-- the nagas' healing techniques had worked wonders, but the exertion was undoing all of their good work.

As he'd watched Riku getting bundled up for transport, Sora was startled by how completely unlike himself the vampire appeared. Without Riku-- the sarcastic, seductive, sometimes sweet Riku-- behind the eyes, his body was as lifeless and hard as the marble statues from the Acropolis. Beautiful and eternal and blank.

Sora slipped only one time during the rest of his journey, and even then he didn't fall _all_ the way to the ground, much to his quiet self-pride.

Once he reached the city he kept an eye out for people, cops especially, because he figured that carrying a limp figure on his back along with a six foot spear might be cause for suspicion. Luckily, the streets were mostly empty, the people urged into their homes by the late hour and the chilling wind. Sora felt numb by the time he reached his house, stiffly laying Riku on the doorstep as he fumbled for his keys and undid the numerous locks lining his door. The locks were all useless to the Slayer for providing anything more than security for what few material possessions he had-- anything that seriously wanted him would simply break down the door-- but they were left by tenants of the past, a testament to his neighborhood's crime rate.

Sora wished he only had to fear other humans, like they did; that he could trust locks to keep him safe.

"Oh, Riku, you're gonna wish you were conscious for this," the boy muttered as he grabbed the vampire under the arms, holding onto his torso as he dragged him to the doorway, trying not to aggravate his wounds any further. "Please, come inside."

Sora hesitated before stepping backward over the threshold; he was surprised-- though he didn't know why, since he'd said the words just a moment before-- to find the invisible barrier gone. Riku could come into his home as easily as any human could walk through the door.

The thought made him cold and tingly from his spine to his fingertips.

Sora paused to lock the door and then resumed dragging the vampire over to the sofa.

"It won't be the comfiest bed, but hey, if we take off the back cushions, look at how roomy it is!" the Slayer said enthusiastically, his smile turning into a soft frown a moment later as he looked down on the unresponsive vampire. Sora carefully picked up Riku and set him gently on the overstuffed couch and adjusted the blankets surrounding him. He quickly flitted around the room, shutting the blinds and drawing the curtains over them, careful to leave no sliver of window exposed. He duct taped the edges down for security.

He whispered a quick goodbye as he knelt at the side of the sofa, smoothing out the vampire's blood-matted hair one last time before venturing back out.

* * *

Riku couldn't remember ever feeling this worn down and torn up. Everything ached and complained, and it wasn't healing like it ought to. That was worrisome.

So he decided not to fight it. He lay perfectly still, unsure of where he was or what had happened, but resigned to it nonetheless. The pain that seemed to encircle every part of his body frightened him; perhaps if he moved he would fall apart.

He forgot to hold still when he felt something hard press against his lips moments later.

"Whazthat," he slurred, trying to beat off whatever was looming over him. He felt his arm make contact with _something_ but couldn't quite discern what. The exclamation of curses that followed was a tip-off. "S-Sora?" Everything was too bright to see at first, but his eyes slowly adjusted to the room.

"You're awake! Oh God, I was freaking out. You didn't move all day. Well, I mean, you kinda moved, but I think that was just your, uh, _body_ reacting and doing that stuff--"

"Doing _what_?" the vampire asked in horror, wondering what his traitorous body could possibly have done while he wasn't aware.

"Reaching for the blood and wiggling around. And, like, hissing and stuff. You tried to eat my hand. Very nearly succeeded, I will add."

"Oh. Well, that's not as bad as what I was imagining," Riku mumbled thankfully. He tried to sit up but was met with surprisingly forceful hands on his chest.

"Nuh-uh. No sir. You are staying put until everything is healed," Sora ordered, pressing the larger man down onto the couch. "Bed rest is what the doctor ordered-- although I'm sort of guessing on that, since it's not like I can actually take you to a doctor." He shrugged, as if to say, 'What can ya do? Doctors don't care about dead people'.

"Wait, why aren't I healed yet?" Riku looked down at his chest, which was laced with punctures and slices.

At first he struggled to piece together what had happened; hazily, he recalled the beginning of the fight. And Sora-- _mostly_ Sora. Then blurs of swinging claws and spikes. The vampire's tongue felt chokingly dry as he thought about it, about having landed in a heap so twisted that he could see into the holes in his body as he went unconscious. "Ugh. I keep remembering… it--"

"Is it all coming back to you?" Sora inquired. He dabbed Riku's shoulders and neck with a wet cloth, trying to clean off the sluggish, tacky blood without touching the wounds themselves.

"Mm. I didn't even remember feeling this bad when it actually happened. Or being so cut up." He groaned lowly, his arms and legs stiffening as he stretched tentatively. "It hurts."

"Guess you're not used to getting your ass kicked like that," the Slayer supposed. "You've actually come a long way since just this morning," he said with a gesture to the wounds. "I got this salve stuff from the naga that really helps hold wounds shut, so I've been trying that…"

Riku twisted to see a bloody towel laid out underneath him and piles of red soiled rags and paper towels littered around the room. There was also a stack of empty, red-stained containers on the floor near the door.

"Did I drink all that?"

"Oh yeah. That and more. I got a crapload of pig blood from a pretty sketchy butcher downtown-- y'know, I thought it would be harder to buy this kind of stuff than it was. They don't even question someone buying gallons of blood, which I find surprising. But I'm pretty sure he thought I was in some satanic ritual or something, 'cause he kept touching this evil eye pendant by his cash register… Anyway, the animal blood didn't seem to do much, so every once in a while I used some of mine--"

"What?" Riku asked sharply, his eyes widening considerably.

"It really helps heal up more of the--"

"Don't do that to yourself," the vampire said hotly.

"I don't mind."

"_I_ mind. What if I lost control? What if you didn't realize how much you were losing? What if I really hurt you? What--"

"Shhh, it's okay." Sora smiled and put his wrist up to Riku's mouth.

"It most certainly isn't," the vampire protested, shrinking away from the brunette and turning his head away as far away from his wrist as it would go without his neck snapping.

"Riku, you know me. I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't think it was necessary and if I didn't feel comfortable doing it," Sora pleaded, turning the man's face back toward him. He didn't miss that hunger in those cerulean eyes, or the way the vampire swallowed dryly while staring at him. "I know you want it and I know it'll help. And I just want to make you feel better."

This time Riku accepted the offered wrist without hesitation, though he gave Sora a guilty, shamefaced look as he sank his teeth into the soft skin.

Sora tried not to wince at the bite and patted the vampire's head reassuringly. Touch had seemed to keep the vampire calmer when Sora had fed him earlier that day, and it was no different now.

But no matter how many times the Slayer had let the vampire drink his blood, the feeling never lost its intensity. It had hurt the first few times-- in a sharp, needlelike way-- but now had changed into something more rewarding and strangely exhilarating than painful. Tingling cold spread out from the bite area, up and down his arm, feeling like icy threads reaching and wrapping around inside him.

It was startling but not altogether unpleasant.

Sora had heard of groups of humans that freely offered themselves to vampires for feeding. Before now, he'd never understood how anyone could enjoy being bitten so much that they would throw away their families and careers and put their lives in jeopardy every night. After today, the Slayer could see the lure; it was borderline addicting, this feeling. He knew he couldn't trust anyone but Riku to do this, though.

"Do you recognize where you are?" the teen finally asked when he figured it was time for the vampire to stop, lest he pass out from blood loss. He'd spent the vampire's sleeping hours devising a good distraction for such an instance, a surefire way to make him stop in a split-second.

Riku paused and glanced up, his narrowed eyes still catlike slits and his tongue frozen against the delicate skin of Sora's wrist. Then he dropped Sora's arm entirely and inhaled in shock. "I'm in your house," he whispered reverently, taking in the room anew, gaping like he'd stumbled into a holy place.

"Yeah, and I have a list of 'no's' that we need to go over," Sora said as he grabbed a notepad and pen from the table and then sat by Riku's feet on the end of the couch. "No coming in through windows, vents, or any other small openings, whether I am aware of their existence or not. No coming in without knocking first and being let in by me or Axel, etc. Act like a polite human would. No creepy stalker stuff-- I expect _all_ of my underwear to still be in the top drawer of my dresser after tonight--"

"Oh, so they're in the top drawer?" Riku asked perkily.

Sora pursed his lips.

"I was kidding," Riku mumbled, not really caring if the brunette heard him or not. "Just kidding."

"Continuing. No leaving notes for me on my front door. People around here do it, but I find that tacky and--"

"Thank you, Sora."

"Huh ?" The teen looked up from his notepad in confusion.

"I said, 'Thank you'. For… not letting me die, for bringing me back. For feeding me, especially with your own blood-- I bet that wasn't enjoyable. For trusting me enough to let me into your home." Riku glowed as he said the last one.

"Oh…" Sora felt his face and neck burn. He ruffled his hair shyly. "It's nothing. It was my fault you got hurt in the first place. I should never have asked you to face that thing head-on--"

"No. Don't say stupid things like that, Slayer. It was a valid plan of attack. You did what had to be done and made a difficult choice based on how probable the chance of ultimate success was. That's _good_. You couldn't have foreseen every detail that could go awry. I'm actually very impressed with the little bit of you that I saw in action there. You're scarily sexy when you're in battle mode." Riku sat up in one fluid motion, winced and grabbed at his side, and then pulled the brunette into a kiss before the boy had the chance to chastise him for aggravating his wounds.

Sora closed his eyes and stiffened awkwardly, unsure of how to react to the cold, firm, but pleasant touch. He gave in quickly to the vampire, moving cooperatively as he was pulled and pushed and lead along by more experienced hands, a more experienced mouth.

The vampire kissed him deeply, slowly, letting has hands roam down the teen's back as he savored the experience. Riku hesitantly pulled his lips away and pressed his forehead briefly against the panting brunette's.

"Wow. You really _haven't_ kissed anyone else before, have you?"

The slap was resounding; it left Riku's face nearly as red as Sora's.

"I mean, it's pretty obvious and all, but that's to be expected, and I don't mind it one bit," Riku explained as he wrapped his arms securely around the boy's waist, unfazed by the Slayer's affronted attack. "Sort of enjoy it, actually," he murmured.

Sora blushed furiously-- he hoped he didn't spontaneously combust from all the heat-- and tried to push away from the vampire. "W-well, it's not like I can help it," he said, flustered.

"Mmm, but _I_ can help," he purred, slipping one icy hand under the hem of Sora's shirt and up his back. "Practice makes perfect, and I'll help you get _plenty_ of practice."

The Slayer gasped at the cold hands trailing up and down his back and clung to Riku's shoulders uncertainly, his fingers slipping through the tattered holes of the vampire's shirt and pressing against cold skin. "H-hey, no. N-no," he choked out, pushing the vampire back and forcibly pulling his hand out from under his shirt. "You need to rest! You're not better yet!"

"Trust me, I'm well enough for this…" He nuzzled the tender area below the boy's ear, his cold tongue occasionally darting out to swipe up the side of the soft-skinned neck.

"What's gotten into you?"

"Are you kidding? I've been wanting to do this for a _long_ time now, Sora." His chuckle was low and almost rough. "And did you forget what I told you about Slayer's blood?"

"It makes your heart sing?" the teen asked with an apprehensive smile.

"S'close enough," the vampire murmured, cupping the sides of the Slayer's face and pulling him so close that their noses touched.

"Honestly, you don't seem that much worse than normal. You must be in a state of constant horniness."

"That could be true-- when it comes to you," he acknowledged with a shrug, pressing his mouth against the brunette's with barely contained longing. "All the more reason to get underway, then, hm?"

Sora let the vampire continue to kiss him-- they were small kisses, pressed across his forehead, on his nose, on his lips, down his jaw, around his neck-- for another minute before pushing him back down.

"What?" the vampire whined as he was held fast and met with a no nonsense look by the brunette.

Sora sighed and nodded his head toward Riku's left shoulder, where a long seam of red was growing. "One: you might not have any more gaping wounds right now, but you keep moving around and you're just going to open them up again. Two: as soon as you are healed enough to be active, first thing--"

"We'll have sex?"

"--you're getting a _bath_," Sora finished smugly, grinning at Riku's crestfallen expression.

The vampire peered down at himself and then felt his hair and then looked at his hands, and saw that the Slayer had a point. There was blood-- some dried and some still sticky-wet-- along with dirt and gravel and splinters of wood and grass stains and bruises. His clothes were barely even clothes anymore-- more like tattered pieces of cloth still wrapped around him. And now that he thought about it, he was fairly sure he could feel leaves or blades of grass or something in his underwear.

"Alright," Riku reluctantly agreed, nodding stiffly. "I could use a bit of a rinse, I suppose. Hell… thanks for letting me kiss you while I was looking this bad," he said seriously as he caught his reflection in a mirror that Sora had on the wall across the room. "I would've turned me down." The vampire tried to rub some of the smudges of dirt and flecks of dried blood from his face.

"Sorry. I tried cleaning you up, but every time I got near your face you'd try to bite me, so…"

"Don't apologize for that…" Riku gave a sigh of his own and slumped against the couch dejectedly.

Sora watched him with a tender smile, feeling tremendously grateful to have the vampire alive, even if he was in an extra-amorous mood. The teen wished he'd remembered that little side-effect of his blood _before_ letting the vampire help himself to a good three pints of grade A Slayer juice.

Or, at least, he _told_ himself that he wished that.

"So… Will you take the bath with me? I promise I won't do anything overly lascivious. Unless… well, I guess we'll just have to see how things go. What do you say, Slayer?" Riku looked up at him from his reclined position on the couch, his expression far too perky for the state of his battered body.

"No, that wouldn't work. But I'm really glad you're feeling better."

Riku stared at the ceiling dully. "I'd be feeling a lot better if you'd at least let me get to third ba-- ow! That was uncalled for," he hissed, rubbing his sore shoulder and glaring at the cinnamon-haired teen. Then he licked his lips and added: "Unless that's how you _like_ it-- ah, Goddammit! I was _impaled_ in that very spot not ten hours ago, so do you think you could _not_ hit me there?"

"I think I've been hit on more in the last few hours than I ever have in my entire life. I'm not enjoying it anymore--"

"So you liked it at first?" the vampire asked hopefully.

"Quit while you're ahead," the Slayer advised. He giggled and then carefully pulled Riku's arm around him, over his shoulder, and then grabbed the back of the vampire's belt. He gently helped the larger man off of the couch and propped him up, letting Riku lean against him as they made their way side-by-side to the stairs at a snail's pace.

"How did you get me here?"

"I carried you on my back," the boy said with a half shrug. He put his hand firmly against the small of the vampire's back, worried about him somehow falling backward down the stairs.

"Down the mountain?" Riku asked with an arched eyebrow.

"Yup."

The vampire looked down at the brunette with clear admiration. "I wish I'd been awake when you invited me in," he said sadly.

"I figured. If I'd had time to set up a camcorder, I would've. If I _had_ a camcorder," he added as an afterthought.

"Do you think… would you mind doing it again? Sometime later? Just so I can fully enjoy it?"

"Whatever you want, Riku," Sora assured him. He sighed as they finally reached the bathroom, in all its grandmotherly glory-- floral wallpaper, lacy shower curtains, pale pink fixtures. It had been that way when Sora had moved in, and he could never find the time or money to change it.

"Oh, your bathtub sucks. I see why you said no," Riku murmured as they shuffled into the small room. "Will I even fit in it?" he asked skeptically as he started to slowly strip, mindful of his injuries.

"Yeah, if you bend your legs. Or you can crouch," Sora suggested as he turned the water knobs, finding the right temperature and then dumping in a cup of pink strawberry-scented bubble bath for good measure.

"I'm not five."

Sora shrugged. "You act like it sometimes."

"So do you," the vampire accused.

"I know. That's why I have bubble bath like all the other five-year-olds." Sora turned and smiled at the two-hundred-something year old vampire and then spun back to face the tub, his cheeks burning with embarrassment.

When Riku spoke, there was something distinctly _proud_ in his voice. "I don't mind if you see me naked--"

"_I_ mind! Cover up!"

There was a rustling and agitated murmuring behind him. "Fine. Your innocent little eyes are safe, Slayer."

Sora concentrated on a spot high on the wall as Riku brushed past him and settled into the water, just in case the vampire tried to flash him or something. _'I wouldn't put it past him, the sneaky bastard.'_

"This is so cramped." Riku sat hunched over in the small bathtub, his knees poking up through the thick layer of fluffy bubbles.

"It's like those Chinese literati paintings with the mountains poking through the clouds," the teen laughed, poking one of the vampire's marble white knees. "Only these clouds are bubblegum pink." Sora grabbed a cup from next to the tub and filled it with water. "Tip your head back."

Riku smirked as the boy drizzled the water slowly over his head and down his silvery hair; gentle fingers threaded through the strands, carefully untangling knots and washing away the clumps of dried blood and dirt.

"This is very relaxing," Riku sighed. He reclined against the wall of the bathtub and rested his arms on the sides, watching Sora from the corners of his eyes all the while.

"As I intended it to be," the Slayer replied warmly, using a washcloth to erase a black smear at the base of the vampire's neck.

"Where will I sleep?" the vampire asked with a lewd grin.

"I was thinking outside… on the porch."

"No, you weren't," Riku said, shaking his head.

"You slept all day, and it'll be night for another six hours at least. You have plenty of time to go home and sleep in your own bed." Sora dumped another cupful of water unceremoniously on the vampire's head. "I'm sure your family is worried."

"I can call them. It's not a problem. And I suddenly feel very weak and tired, so I don't think I can make it home until tomorrow night."

"You poor, poor thing," Sora said sarcastically, tossing the washcloth to the vampire and standing up. "You finish getting clean, and I'll go see if I can find the air mattress. It's better than the couch. And you'd better not try to sneak up to my bed, or I really will kick you out."

The vampire smiled triumphantly. "Thanks, Slayer."

* * *

He would have to celebrate, Cloud mentally noted; never had he enjoyed such a lucky streak in dating. Five dates now-- all successful by varying margins. This night had been the best: a concert by a string quartet, followed by a private wine tasting at one of the area's most celebrated winemakers, and now a moonlit walk through the vineyard.

It was so romantic, but without the sappiness that was so often saddled along with it. There was no overly emotional exchange of words or kissing, but their shared presence was enjoyable in itself. Being with Leon felt so strangely natural now; Cloud wasn't near as nervous or worried about their meetings anymore. Talking to him was a pleasure-- Cloud didn't know how on earth the man could be so knowledgeable about _everything_-- and oddly enough, Leon seemed to be genuinely interested in the daily goings-on of the blonde's life. Even minute details seemed to fascinate him, and he appeared to prefer discussing Cloud over himself. The teacher had to admit, it felt nice to have someone interested in his life.

As they trudged slowly through the rows of grapevines and into the thinly wooded area on the outskirts of the vineyard, Cloud looked down at their hands, at his slightly darker, sun-tinted fingers intertwined with Leon's cold, pale ones. When the dark-haired man had first taken his hand, Cloud had jumped in surprise-- it had been so long since anyone had even tried that. (Leon's perpetually cold hands-- probably poor circulation, Cloud reasoned-- might have also played a role.) It had left him with a warm pressure somewhere below his heart and above his stomach.

But now that they had been wandering outside for a while, far from the heated patios, Cloud was beginning to crave a glove or pocket over Leon's frosty touch. It was almost cold enough for the gardeners to start checking the vines for winter damage.

"Uh, Leon? Do you mind?" he asked quietly, flexing his hand in the man's strong grip.

Leon shook his head, letting go of the teacher's hand and wordlessly pulling out gloves of his own.

Cloud grinned and did the same, although he felt the tiniest bit silly putting on his fuzzy, neon orange cotton gloves while watching Leon slip gleaming black leather ones onto his own hands. The brunet gave him one of his peculiar, barely there smiles-- the sort that he often seemed to use to let Cloud know that he didn't find him silly, in spite of the blonde's self-consciousness.

It made the man's cheeks turn a shade of red different from the one caused simply by the cold.

"Oh, look at how the moon looks right now." Cloud jerked his chin up in the direction of the waning, not-quite-full moon as it was hazily covered by a thin strip of clouds. "It's nice."

Leon nodded briefly in agreement before rounding on the blonde and scooping up his hand again, leather holding onto frizzing cotton, resuming their solitary stroll. "It is nice."

It was minutes later when Cloud finally broke the comfortable silence.

"Alright, spill it, Leon," the blonde demanded with a smile. His smile became a temporary wince as a prickly vine hooked his sleeve and pierced through to his arm before peeling away as he continued walking.

Leon stiffened the tiniest bit. "What?"

"You're secretly a mafia boss. You have six toes on your left foot. You actually live in a bat-infested crypt." Cloud glanced up at him from under long eyelashes. "You're too good to be true. There must be something you're hiding."

The corner of Leon's mouth pulled up. "You're very good."

"I deal with lying, conniving high schoolers all day. I'm no stranger to secrets." Cloud tilted his head and looked at the man out of the corner of his eye expectantly.

Leon's lips thinned. "My family _is_ slightly deranged, if that counts."

Cloud waved his hand dismissively. "Whose isn't? My aunt Periwinkle tried to put me in a washing machine when I was six. She was the strangest woman. I'm almost certain that that was just one attempt of many to do away with me. She must have trained her cats…"

The brunette furrowed his brow at that but let it pass without question. "The last time we had a family reunion, two houses burned down," Leon countered with a smile-turned-grimace. "And then Sephiroth's car-- the newest of many, of course-- it was so close to the house…"

The blonde felt his eyes almost flutter shut as he listened to the man's deep yet quiet voice-- how it never rose or wavered but was as cool and tranquil as the night around them. He knew he should have been paying better attention, since Leon almost never spoke about himself or his life in great detail, but it was too easy to just fall into a relaxed stupor at the steady, soothing tone of his words.

"-- not that Demyx hasn't done _that_ before. Then again, Lulu has never been very trustworthy around flammable--"

Leon's sudden stop caught Cloud off-guard, jerking the blonde back. He glanced back at the man, at first in annoyance, then in worry upon seeing the troubled expression on his face. "What's wrong? Did you hear something?"

The leather-clad vampire hesitated before answering. "No, I was just imagining things."

"Things like what?"

"Unimportant things," Leon answered brusquely.

* * *

Riku propped his foot up on the arm of the couch and started lacing up his boots, pulling the black leather tight and secure around his calf.

"Where are you off to?" Roxas asked as he passed the younger vampire on his way into the kitchen.

"To see the Slayer."

"Again?"

"Again," the vampire replied testily.

"Seems like that's all you ever do anymore-- go help the Slayer patrol, train with the Slayer, lurk at the Slayer… I mean, you just got back from your little sleepover a night ago. Are you going dressed like that?" the blonde asked with an eyebrow raised skeptically. "I don't think many men wear outfits like that these days."

Riku finished tying the laces and started buttoning his charcoal grey vest. "I don't care. I'm tired of wearing the ugly clothes they keep making. Half the clothing I see in the stores these days is shameful."

"I agree," Roxas said with a serious nod. "Last night I saw a man with his pants pulled down so low that I could see his underwear and his ass at the same time." The vampire shook his head sadly. "I decided it was my civic duty to try and end this disgraceful behavior, so I beat him unconscious, pulled his pants up to an acceptable height, and pinned a note to his shirt telling him to buy a belt, or I'd track him down and strangle him with one." The blonde whistled brightly as he started washing his hands in the sink.

"Was that your good deed for the year?" Riku asked with a sarcastic smile.

Roxas laughed as he dried his hands on a kitchen washcloth. "Of course… So why are you going to see the Slayer all of a sudden? It's barely even sundown."

Riku briefly glanced up as he adjusted his cuffs. "He called a few minutes ago and asked me to come help him with something."

"Booty call!" a teasing voice echoed from down the hall. The thud of speeding feet was heard, and Demyx thundered into the living room with all the gusto of a marathon runner. "I-- whoa, you look _old_!"

The grinding of Riku's teeth was audible. "I do _not_ look _old_."

"No more of that MTV channel for you," Roxas said disgustedly, mentally noting to himself that he needed to bring up Riku's age more often, as it seemed to be a particularly sore spot lately. "It's contaminating your already fragile mind."

"Is not," the youngest protested.

"It's not about us having sex," Riku complained, correcting Demyx-- even though he somewhat guiltily found himself wishing that it _was_. "He and Axel were out patrolling and he says they found a very disturbing corpse. Said that it looks like everything is missing except for the skin, which is still practically intact. They don't know what could have killed it."

"Wait-- Axel went out with the Slayer without telling me?" the blonde asked in disbelief.

Riku stared at the older vampire for a moment and then snorted, putting his hands on his hips. "Funny. I kind of expected the surprise to come from the whole 'all that's left of him is his skin' part of what I said, but yes, that too. Do you really expect him to notify you of every little thing he does?"

"No, but he could have at least invited me along," he argued stubbornly. "Hmph… Well, I want to come, too."

Riku laughed. "You _can't_! All you ever do is piss off the Slayer and get me into hot water with him."

Roxas shrugged. "I want to go see Axel. I'll just follow you if you say no."

Riku cursed lowly but gave in. "You're sure singing a different tune from a few days ago. What happened to 'werewolves are the stench of the earth'? And 'as far as I'm concerned, he's dead'?"

Roxas frowned. "Would you shut up? I was upset. _Some_ of us are capable of maturing within a relatively short period of time."

The tall, silver-haired vampire snorted and rolled his eyes in disbelief. Roxas could be the most maddening person on earth at times. "Whatever. Good for you, you mature little doggy lover."

"Stop that. You're never this mean to Demyx."

Upon hearing his name, Demyx chimed in. "I want to come! I want to come! I want to meet the Slayer and Roxas's werewolf! Please? Please, please? Pleasepleasepleaseplease--"

Riku buried his face in gloved hands, groaning.

* * *

This time, when Leon came to a sudden halt, Cloud didn't blink for fear of missing something. Leon glared so sternly at him that he felt almost wilted by it, quailed instantly into silence. There was something so strong in those steel-colored eyes that wouldn't let him look away, much less voice his concerns.

The blonde exhaled in relief when the brunette's eyes turned to the woodland around them instead, quietly surveying.

Cloud quickly grew impatient at the man's silence and unwillingness to provide an answer for this behavior, at the iron grip on his upper arm that forced him to stand stock-still, at his focus on staring into the empty shadows.

The edge of frustration and anger was apparent in his tone of voice when he finally exploded. "Leon, what the-- mmfff!" The man strained against the hand over his mouth, startled and frightened by the action. Stone arms locked him into place-- the blonde could not have inhaled had Leon's grip been any tighter. Bright blue eyes widened in fear, watering slightly at the panic and the helplessness and the overwhelming smell and taste of leather.

And there, held fast against a body that felt like supple steel, he saw what the brunette had been watching.

Cloud's skin prickled at the shape moving in the shadows just beyond the nearest string of trees. His stomach turned sickeningly as his mouth went dry, yet he couldn't stop looking, both repulsed and strangely mesmerized by the thing's jarring body.

It was too far away to see clearly-- Cloud thanked God for that-- but it was evidently neither animal nor human, despite its upright position. It blended with the shadows, half concealed in darkness, but its gait was so jerky and eerie that it couldn't be mistaken for anything else of the woods.

Golden eyebrows shot up as it ambled through the trees; his forehead creased as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing. Its body moved in blocky sections-- first the legs jutted forward, followed by the hips, then the too-long arms and the torso with its distended stomach, and lastly the head. The blonde shuddered and quaked as it suddenly stopped, chunkily turned its body in their direction, and began shifting toward them. The jolt of nausea that ripped through Cloud at its approach felt primal, spurred by some underlying recognition of the utter wrongness and malevolence of the creature he was seeing.

Cloud screamed into the leather-gloved hand covering his mouth, and how Leon kept the sound from escaping he did not know. So quietly that he might have imagined it, the young man heard a hiss of a 'shhh' in his ear and sucked in his breath, trying to make as little noise as possible.

A patch of streaming moonlight revealed lumpy off-white skin and a wedge-shaped head with lidless black eyes so large that they dominated its face. A mouth so wide that it seemed to nearly split the head in half gaped at them, almost smiling, filled with triangular teeth glinting dully, too black around the edges to really glisten. Cloud could hear it now-- the repugnant sloshing, spine-popping noises as it moved...

And then as suddenly as it had turned toward them, the thing's legs made an abrupt ninety degree turn and the rest of the body twisted after, ambling off further into the woods to their left until it was no longer visible.

The vise-tight grip on him loosened, and the blonde found that he couldn't support himself. His legs were useless, his knees seemingly haven given up on functioning. Were it not for the hand gently bracing him, holding him up against that pillar of a body, he knew he would have crumpled to the ground.

Cloud felt himself lifted up. He felt Leon's hand still covering his mouth. He only briefly wondered how the man was carrying his weight in one arm. He wasn't sure how much time had passed when the dark-haired man finally set him down and removed his hand.

The strangled sob that escaped his mouth came as a surprise. Cloud pulled off his gloves and ran shaking fingers across his cheeks-- when had he been crying? He sloppily raked his sleeves under his eyes and nose, trying to wipe his face clean. The cold stung especially hard anywhere that tears had fallen.

The blonde jumped as he felt an icy hand against his back. Without thinking, he turned and hit the man's arm, wincing at how solid Leon was, and after a moment's thought, wheeled and slapped him across the chest as well.

"Be careful--"

"W-what the hell was t-_that_?" Cloud choked, pushing the taller man away and lashing out at his arms every time the man tried to reach out to the blonde. His hands ached from hitting Leon, and he quickly grew tired and fatigued despite the lack of damage he was doing.

""Clo--"

"G-God! S-s-stop--"

"You need to stop breathing so quickly," Leon said firmly, placing his hands heavily on the man's sagging shoulders and forcing him to sit down on a mossy, knee-high rock. "You might pass out."

It took Cloud a moment to register what Leon had said and then to realize that he was, in fact, hyperventilating. He took a few minutes to slow his breathing, all the while scanning the surrounding area anxiously.

"G-get out of here," the blonde mumbled quickly, obviously on the edge of panic. He swallowed down the feeling of bile rising in the back of his throat. "I w-want… I need t-to get out--"

Cloud curled up as Leon lifted him this time, his head almost touching his knees. He shook intensely, though not so much from the cold as from an unshakable fear. Despairing, he closed his eyes and pressed his palms over them, trying to push the image of that monster out of his mind's eye. It couldn't be human. No explanation. Had to be some monster or demon, like the ones in folklore, but so real he didn't feel like he'd ever be able to shut his eyes without seeing it again.

* * *

They formed a circle around the body-- or what remained of it. The skin lay on the ground, floppy and flat and still human-shaped.

"Ew." Sora felt the need to vomit.

"Ew, indeed," Riku agreed, arching eyebrow at the sight.

"It's like he was eaten from the inside out," Axel said bluntly. "Like an Oreo."

This attracted suspicious stares from around the circle.

The redhead noticed all the looks he was getting and jumped. "Oh, no, no, don't get me wrong, here. I do _not_ approve of this killing, nor do I find it appetizing. I hate Oreos. That analogy was supposed to convey disgust, not delight."

"Oreos are delicious," Sora argued. "Don't compare them to a corpse that's had all its insides taken out. You'll ruin them for me."

"Yes, werewolf. Keep your dumb, doggy thoughts about dessert items to yourself," Riku added, sneering at the man.

"Don't talk to him like that," Roxas growled vehemently, glaring at his brother. "And keep those weird thoughts to yourself," he added in an almost inaudible hiss to Axel, slapping the side of one of the werewolf's thighs sharply.

"So you have no idea what could have done this?" Sora asked, ignoring the interruption.

Riku shrugged and shook his head, and Roxas furrowed his brow.

"It's unusual," the petite blonde said as he knelt next to the body, his expression curious. "At first I figured it might be another vampire-- Riku and I've done this sort of thing before, with the skin-- you remember that, Riku? Flaying those humans? Hm?"

The silver-haired vampire twitched his head the barest bit, his lip pulling back into a an incredibly slight snarl, looking as though he _did_ remember and was keen to putting those skills into practice on Roxas _right now_.

The blonde's smirk was barely visible as he continued his conversation with the Slayer. "Anyway, I don't think any vampire could do this. It's incredibly different. I mean, it's not uncommon for vampires to flay… the Palliata uses it on law-breaking vampires and it's a fairly acceptable method of fledgling control and intimidation, but a case like this just doesn't seem physically possible. The skin's not cut up at all, and there are no signs of the rest of him. It's too clean."

"Well, a lot of my destined career seems like it's not physically possible, but…" Sora shrugged.

"If it's not one of us, what do you think, Roxas?" Riku asked, his voice sharp-- he hadn't forgotten Roxas' provoking words yet.

The short blonde rose gracefully up from his crouch, finished with examining the remains. "Magic. A demon… maybe a very angry witch or warlock, but I don't think there are any of _this_ level around here."

"Alright," Sora murmured with a nod. He stood and wiped his hands against his jeans, trying to quell the urge to immediately go and wash his hands repeatedly. "That's better than no lead at all. Ax, you think you can keep an eye out at your bar? Listen for any talk about this? I'd like to nab whatever this is before it strikes again."

"Yeah, not a problem. Speaking of, I should probably get going," the werewolf muttered, looking down at his watch. "They get feisty if I'm not there by an hour after sunset."

The redhead left the wooded area of the park at a jog, Roxas following right behind him. Sora waited for their voices to disappear completely as they went around the block.

"Jesus. It's just one unholy union after another with your family, isn't it?" the brunette teased, poking the reluctantly smirking vampire in the side. "Oh, hey-- where'd Demyx go?" Sora asked suddenly, looking around in concern.

"I'm over here, behind these bushes." A shrub rustled. "I felt nauseous."

"He really is a gentle vampire," Sora said softly in Riku's ear. "It's like those videos they play on Animal Planet where lions take care of baby gazelles and stuff."

"Very apt description," Riku muttered. "You okay, Demyx?" he said loudly, pacing over to the greenery where the younger vampire was hidden.

"Yeah, yeah," Demyx answered as he stood and brushed himself off, still looking dizzy. "Sorry, Riku."

"It's fine." Riku couldn't resist. "I told you so, though."

The sandy blonde mullet bobbed up and down as the vampire nodded his head and covered his mouth.

"I have chewy Pepto-Bismal tablets if you need some?" Sora interjected unsurely. "Dunno if that works on you guys."

Riku shrugged. "I'm not sure."

"No, s'okay. I just needed to not be near it. I mean, it looks awful. Poor guy." Demyx rubbed his hands up and down his arms, looking thankful to still have his own skin. "Sorry, Sora," he said sheepishly.

The brunette's eyes widened. "Don't apologize! It's fine, really. You didn't do anything wrong."

"Don't worry, Demy. It's not like whatever did this is going to come after you," Riku said soothingly, patting the younger vampire on the head and simultaneously grabbing his arms to still the furious rubbing.

"Oh, it's not that." The loose strands of hair that hung in his face swished back and forth as he shook his head. "It's… when I see humans getting hurt like this, it makes me worry about Zexion. He's not a Slayer or anything-- he's regular. And so are the ones that end up dying. So I don't like things hurting them."

Riku grimaced slightly. "Don't worry about that either, okay?" He tweaked the younger vampire's nose affectionately. "I'm going to go check along the rest of the wall. We might have missed something, maybe. Need to take care of the body, too. I'll be back in a few minutes."

The two watched the vampire's retreating back until it blended with the darkness.

Sora smiled warmly, curious and pleased about the sandy haired vampire. "So who's Zexion?"

The young vampire's eyes brightened at that. "Oh, yeah, Zexy! He's so smart. He reads like crazy. I never read in high school, y'know? He likes to cook, too. It makes me wish I could eat! He even pickles his own cucumbers and tomatoes and okra. Isn't that cool?"

"Definitely. So he's your…" Sora trailed off expectantly, waiting for Demyx to fill in the blank.

"My boyfriend." The vampire beamed as he said the word. "He's really special."

The Slayer smiled softly at that. 'Warm and fuzzy' didn't begin to cover how talking to Demyx made him feel inside. The slouching, flannel-clad vampire-- with his odd combination of mullet and Mohawk-- looked so unlike how he acted. And Sora had to admit, it was a boost to the spirit to find a vampire that was so… un-vampire-like. "I'm glad you have him, then."

"Yeah, me too." He shuffled in place, staring down at the ground before making eye contact with Sora again. "So, I hope you can have someone like that, too. Especially if it was Riku," the vampire said with a shy smile.

"Oh! Uh…" Sora blushed darkly, fidgeting instantly. "R-Riku…"

"Don't be embarrassed! You should never be embarrassed about feelings!" the vampire chided, waving his arms wildly. "I'm just saying because I know he likes you a lot, and he might not come out and say plainly how much he cares, but it's a whole lot. And he's a good person, uh, well… it _was_ deep, deep down inside, but he's been a lot nicer on the outside, too, lately. And I think a lot of that has to do with you! Which is really cool."

Demyx and Sora both scratched the backs of their heads in silence.

"Alright," Sora said lamely. "That's, uh… hm. Yeah."

The two chuckled nervously.

"What's funny?"

Sora jumped to the side, so startled by Riku's sudden appearance that he could feel his heartbeat going so fast that it actually _hurt_. "Damn! Could you at least make a _little_ bit of noise when you walk?"

The silver haired vampire shrugged. "Hey, Demyx? I found a lead on whatever oreo-ed that guy, so we're going to follow it. You should probably go hang around Axel and Roxas. Do you know where that bar is?"

The sandy blonde nodded enthusiastically and grinned. "Good luck, you guys! It was cool meeting you, Sora," he called as he ran-- and it was a funny run, Sora noticed, with his arms sort of out to the side-- out of the park and down the sidewalk.

Sora's smile at the cheerful vampire lingered for a few seconds longer before fading as they got back down to business. "Did you take care of the bod-- er, skin?" he asked Riku as he followed him along the ten foot stone wall that hedged the park.

"Yeah. All done."

The brunet sighed and looked resigned. "So what's this lead?"

Sora's eyes widened at the glinting necklace that the vampire held up. A large square emerald was framed by gold, suspended on a thin golden chain. Tiny markings seemed to be etched into the gem, incredibly intricate for their miniscule size.

"What is it?" Sora asked, entranced by the spinning piece of jewelry.

"A clue."

The Slayer's eyes narrowed as he looked up to the vampire. "Really? Is that all you can say?"

Riku shrugged defensively. "I'm not an expert on this, Slayer. Why don't _you_ tell _me_ what it is? This is supposed to be your job."

Sora pouted and mumbled something under his breath.

Riku rolled his eyes. "Anyway, I can at least track the scent on it, so we should get somewhere with it. It's definitely demonic," he murmured, turning the shining amulet over in his hand.

"Demonic," Sora echoed thoughtfully.

"Absolutely. Now let's get moving," the vampire said sternly, turning on his heel and waving for the Slayer to follow him.

"Oh, wait, wait!" Sora called as he turned and ran back for his duffel bag filled with weaponry. He jogged back toward the vampire with the giant bag strung over his shoulder, the duffel clunking noisily against his thigh. "Great to be prepared," he said with a smile, patting the olive green canvas proudly.

Riku gently inclined his head toward the Slayer, smiling in agreement.

* * *

"What the hell was that?" he tried again. He let his head sag in the corner between the headrest of the passenger seat and the chilled window. The sharp cold was relieving. "That thing…"

Leon sat in silence, his hands resting heavily on the steering wheel at ten and two.

Cloud shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose tiredly, hoping to alleviate some of the pain in his head. He wasn't entirely sure why he had such a terrible headache-- he guessed it had something to do with having your beliefs of an ordinary, relatively safe world entirely shattered. His mind was probably hard at work trying to reconcile the horrific discovery with his past of ignorance regarding the supernatural and the superhuman.

"I think you would be better not knowing the details. You have enough to deal with already."

"I'm not some child," the blonde replied bitterly. "It's not like it can get any worse than what I've seen already, anyway." He turned from the window, shakily facing Leon. He tilted his head and looked at the man as if seeing him for the first time. "And just what the hell are you?"

* * *

"Oh my God," Sora gasped, trying to hold his breath. A vampire dressed in a hole-riddled suit from the last century was straddling his waist and leaning aggressively over his face, trying to press his mouth into the Slayer's throat. Sora could keep him at bay with the broken handle of a three-pronged spear he'd been using, holding one end in each hand and keeping it sideways for defense, but what was really killing him was the vampire's breath. "_God_, it's so bad Riku! Kugggh. Ugh. Oh God." He made a retching sound, feeling his gag reflex kicking into action and making him hack.

"Are you alright?" Riku asked from across the children's park, where he was preoccupied with two vampires, each wearing an outfit similar to that of the vampire that was attacking Sora.

"I don't think this guy has brushed his teeth _once_ since he went vamp," Sora groaned, whacking the rotten-breathed vampire in the face with the spear handle so hard that it broke again, splintering in half as the vampire fell backward.

The Slayer rolled out from under his body, delivering a solid kick to the vampire in the process. "I know that when you were alive, your dental cleanliness regimen probably consisted of scrubbing your teeth with a tree root or clay or something, but times have changed," Sora explained to the backwards creature, grabbing a splintered piece of the wooden handle and scraping it against the concrete, trying to sharpen it into a better point.

The vampire crawled to him with lightning speed, his face contorted with a snarl, wild, slitted eyes glowing under a stiff, furrowed brow.

"But there's this wonderful new thing called toothpaste, and it even comes in cinnamon now, which is delicious," Sora continued, trading blows with him low on the ground, waiting for an opening to use his makeshift stake. "And then there's _mouthwash_--"

"Slayer, I get the distinct feeling that none of them care much about dental hygiene," Riku interrupted, knocking one of his opponents back onto a low, wooden fence with enough force to impale him. He dissolved, trickling into dust and ash. "Stop with the lecture and get on with killing him."

"I'm going to! Jeez, it's called multitasking," the brunette said sourly, finally jamming the jagged piece of wood into the vampire's chest, just as he was lunging in for a strike on the Slayer. Within seconds, he began to disintegrate and collapse into a pile of dust. The Slayer then turned his attention to Riku. "Are you okay Riku? Do you feel alright? Do you need to sit down for a minute? I brought a pillow in my bag just in case," he called anxiously.

"For the last time, Sora, I'm fine," the vampire growled in annoyance. He quickly subdued the remaining vampire and staked her quite violently, but not before she managed to bite deeply into his arm. The silver-haired vampire ignored her as she dissolved into a shower of pale dust, focused on examining his bleeding arm.

"Oh God!" the Slayer said urgently, hopping to his feet and running over to the vampire, already reaching into his pocket for a roll of bandages. "Does it hurt too badly?"

"No, not really. See?" Riku stretched out his left arm for the brown-headed boy, displaying the two red semicircles that were slowly leaking blood. "Not that deep. It'll heal soon enough. I've been eating better."

"Better safe than sorry." Sora grabbed his arm, rolled up the sleeve, and began carefully wiping away blood with the hem of his shirt.

Riku watched, captivated, as the teen began gingerly wrapping the bandages around the wound, his nimble fingers tying the white cloth tight. The Slayer was so attentive to every little cut and bruise he received, no matter how slight and temporary it was. A holdover from seeing him cut up like ground meat, he supposed. "Thanks," he said as Sora finished up.

"Not a problem." The boy waved it off, giving Riku a smile. Then he scanned the ground and frowned. "So much for my favourite spear. It was an actual chidori jumonji yari," he complained as he began gathering pieces, "straight from a dealer in Japan. Axel got it for me. It cost him a fortune, 'cause they're hard to forge and really rare. It was created with magic, too." He stacked the bits of wood in a sad little pile and gave a salute. "At least the blade is okay," he shrugged, turning the blood slicked, cross-shaped blade over in his hands. "And some of the shaft is still attached to it…"

"Better to lose a good weapon than your life," Riku comforted, eyeing the wicked looking blade appreciatively. "You can have it restored. It is rather nice, after all. Maybe the redhead's taste isn't so bad."

"Wait, was that a compliment?" Sora asked gleefully, his eyebrows raised playfully as he danced around Riku, waiting for an answer.

"He's not here to hear it," the vampire said with a shrug. He smiled a little at the Slayer's antics. "A compliment doesn't count if the complimentee _never hears it_." He winked darkly at the boy.

The teen chuckled nervously and sealed his lips. "You're so scary when you're kidding around, Riku."

"Kidding around?" he asked with a maniacal grin, earning a shove from the brunette, who muttered a 'don't be so creepy' before stalking off further into the woods, the now half-empty bag trailing along the ground behind him as Riku laughed.

"Are we still headed the right way? I got sort of disoriented when those freaks popped out of nowhere to attack us." He wanted to add that the appearance of a second body, mangled in the same way as the first, had also left him dazed and distracted but refrained, not wanting to think on it. The Slayer stumbled momentarily as he clambered over a fallen tree, earning a chuckle from the vampire following behind him.

Riku's chest expanded as he breathed in deeply, discerning the scent they were trailing from pine and spruce and animals, from the wind that carried melted snow and sawdust down from the mountains. "We're on the right track."

"Great, great," Sora mumbled as he recovered from the bobble of a moment before. He continued to mumble something under his breath, nervously looking back at the vampire multiple times.

Riku cocked his head at the teen's quiet noises, the hums and stammers and inaudible words. "What was that, Slayer?" he asked, taking long strides to close the gap between them.

"I said, 'you look nice tonight'," the brunette mumbled, his cheeks glowing hot red, as he refused to look anywhere except at the ground immediately in front of him.

Riku could practically see the heat coming off of the embarrassed brunette. He smirked. "I know."

Sora rolled his eyes, the flush on his cheeks suddenly feeling less intense. "Your ego is a monster of its own. I need to stop feeding it," he groaned.

The vampire was next to him now, shortening his strides to remain alongside the Slayer. "You do, too. Look nice, that is."

Sora snorted bashfully, throwing out a hand and gesturing first to Riku's outfit of tight white breeches, white linen shirt and fitted black vest, and knee-high laced boots, and then to his own worn sneakers, slightly oversized jeans, and thick brown hoodie with its fraying sleeves and his worn and holed gloves.

"What you're wearing doesn't matter. I wasn't just taking your outfit into consideration when I said that. Besides, I've had more time and money to build a wardrobe," Riku said as an excuse, waving off the boy's comment.

"_Way_ more time," Sora said with a laugh, poking the vampire's side teasingly.

Riku growled lowly and swatted the Slayer's hand away. "Not _that_ much time. Jesus, I'm not some fucking geezer, Slayer."

"You're like two-hundred! If you're going to be sensitive about your age, you probably shouldn't be immor… tal."

The chuckle in the Slayer's throat died instantly, as did his smile. The two slowly came to a stop, both turning deadly serious.

Not more than ten yards away were remains strikingly similar to the ones that they had encountered earlier, and just beyond that, a hunched, human-like form rocking back and forth in the midst of the bodiless skins.

It glanced up, having heard the two drawing close, and revealed a vein laced face framed by wild curls. She grinned and slowly rose, revealing a long, tattered green dress. She pointed a clawed hand toward them and started muttering slowly, rhythmically.

Riku's eyes widened and he flew into action, quickly grabbing Sora's arm at the elbow and pulling him aside before sprinting toward the demonic woman at full speed. Just as he reached her, she was gone in a tiny puff of smoke, reappearing instantly a few yards away.

Riku snarled as she cackled wildly at them, her twisted hands holding her sides. "Don't let her hex you," he called to Sora, who was standing nearby, baffled. He gave the Slayer a pleading, angry look that practically screamed for the boy to _at least_ get out a weapon.

Sora made a startled 'oh!' and began blindly reaching around the bag for something really substantial. He was pleased to pull out a massive sledgehammer.

But the demon seemed to forget them for the moment, instead trudging back to the circle of corpses and cooing over them. The vampire turned his head curiously, keeping his gaze fixed on the cackling female as he slinked over to the teen, still half hidden in the shadows of the trees.

"They got what they deserved!" the demon shrieked suddenly, not even looking at the two. "All of them! It was their own fault, seeing too much. Humans used to let us lie, to accept when supernatural vengeance was being granted. Now they just poke, poke, poke--"

"Vengeance?" Riku murmured to himself, his forehead creasing as he met the Slayer's gaze out of the corner of his eye. "So familiar sounding… I feel like I should kno-- oh!"

Before Sora knew what had happened, the silver haired vampire had tugged him behind a thick-trunked tree, hidden totally from the sight of the demon. Riku whispered furiously fast. "I remember this! Vengeance demons! They're all female like her! How do you kill them? Do you know? I can't remember for the life of me… well, not 'life' of me," he corrected quickly.

The brunette's mouth dangled open as he struggled to recall if he'd ever come across such information. "Surely, one of the pages in your bingo book--"

"Augh, I know! I just can't think of it right now. There are so many very specific ways to kill certain demons, and I'm almost certain that there's a trick you need for vengeance demons."

"A trick? Like, they're weak against fire?"

The vampire shook his head impatiently, peering covertly around the trunk to make sure their demon was still talking to herself. She was-- pacing around the mutilated bodies and alternating between shrill cackles and angry mutterings. She seemed to be arguing with the bodiless corpses.

"Vengeance demons aren't like most demons. They were once human women, but they turn into demons that exact vengeance on humans after going under a contract. They're given special powers and immortality in exchange for working for Halfernes, the king vengeance demon."

Sora adjusted his grip on the hammer anxiously. "So… should I just go hit her? I don't care if it's part of her job-- she can't be skinning people like that."

"No, it can't be vengeance related," the vampire murmured, mostly to himself. "They have protocols to follow. Vengeance demons take care of business-- they don't leave unusual bodies lying around or kill any more than is necessary. They're very professional. She's… not. She's not right in the head."

Sora arched an eyebrow, not really interested in Riku's musings. "Right. Well, you keep on psychoanalyzing, and I'm gonna go beat the shit out of her. Be back in a minute."

"Wait!" Riku snarled as the Slayer evaded his grip, dodging away and running for the rambling demon. Sora skidded to a stop behind her and swung the hammer in a wide arc, the metal block at the end catching her in the side and knocking her over.

He'd expected to hear a crack of some kind-- bones snapping, things getting crushed-- but she landed on the ground with only a soft thud before picking herself back up, fully intact and, if possible, looking more crazy and pissed than before.

The brunette groaned miserably as she turned her full attention back on him, lunging and muttering curses and incantations, clawing at him with sharp nails.

Sora took a step back with every step that she took forward. He made several successful hits with the sledgehammer, catching her under the jaw and across the neck and at the waist, but nothing slowed her advances. A blow that would have crumpled a vampire only gave her a moment's pause. She pursued him at a stagger, still whispering under her breath.

"Sora! Slayer, I remem-- hey, hit this!" the vampire shouted urgently as he came up behind the demon, skirting around her to reach the Slayer, dangling the emerald necklace in the air. "That hammer's enchanted, right? It should be able to break her amulet!"

"That thing?" Sora asked incredulously as he delivered another whack to her face, irritably finding that it did nothing. He looked from the demon to Riku, doubtful.

"Vengeance demons get their power from their contract, and their contract is their amulet," the vampire said in a rush, his teeth gritting at the Slayer's hesitation. "Hurry up and crush it! Hitting her in the face obviously hasn't worked yet, so why do you keep doing it?"

"Sorry!" the teen huffed. He snatched the chain, its gem twirling dizzying circles at the end, and tossed it onto the relatively flat surface of a nearby rock. As he raised the hammer, he glanced over just in time to see the vengeance demon's eyes widen frightfully and hear her hiss.

True to Riku's word, as soon as the amulet was cracked-- nothing more than twisted metal and emerald shards-- the contract was broken. She fell slowly to her knees before withering rapidly, curling up on herself and drying out, as if mummifying. An instant later the body burst into green flames, burning up and dying out in a matter of seconds.

Sora's labored breathing and the brief hoot of a distant owl were the only noise in the moment of pause.

"I told you so." Riku's tone was a combination of bitterness and smug, know-it-all arrogance.

"You weren't even sure up until two seconds ago," Sora said dismissively. He turned his eyes to the pitiful remains of the vengeance demon's victims, forehead creasing sadly. "I should bury them. Or something. It's the least…"

Riku, still slightly irritated at the boy, was on the verge of pointing out that they had brought no shovels, no pick-axes, not even a trowel, and that they hadn't bothered to bury the _last_ body they'd found-- just performed the same simple teleportation spell to keep any humans from stumbling upon it.

But the Slayer, rather than waiting for his agreement, had already walked over to a patch of soil and driven the hammer into it, pulling up dirt and raking it aside. It was not effective in the least, and would, at best, take an hour of lugging to make a shallow grave.

The vampire very suddenly felt an acute shame for having prepared an argument against this. He searched for the Slayer's bag, pulled out a dingy-looking Shaolin spade (and peeled off the sticky note which he surmised had been left by Axel, saying only 'FOR ZOMBIES') and quietly settled beside the Slayer, thrusting the spade into the ground and tossing the dirt aside.

Sora paused in his digging and glanced over, surprised. "You don't have to…"

"I know," he said with a nod.

The cinnamon haired boy smiled to himself as he returned to breaking up the solid earth.

"Besides," the vampire continued, "'many hands make light work'. I could rattle off a hundred other little proverbs that somehow pertain to this situation as well, but I'll refrain for both of our sakes."

And Sora chuckled to himself, grateful for the company.

* * *

Leon's eyes softened-- although the human probably couldn't notice subtleties of such a level, no matter how astute he was-- every time he looked at Cloud. At the moment, his eyes were rimmed with red and his face still had a barely visible shine along the trails where tears had run. His expression was confusion, shock, dismay.

Cloud had given in surprisingly quickly, agreeing to stay the night with him after only the most minimal protests. Whatever the blonde now feared about Leon, the things he feared about the other monsters that went bump in the night was worse-- he was the lesser of two evils.

It was little comfort to the vampire.

"You are more than welcome to use the shower. I'll put some extra clothes on the shelf with the towels for you. We don't have any food," the vampire said regretfully, running his thumb slowly along the handle of the refrigerator, which he was peering into with a frown. "Except for Wheaties. And chocolate pudding, for some reason."

"I'll take some of that." The small blonde pointed to the shelves containing Leon's liquor.

The chocolate-haired vampire nodded understandingly. "Which one?"

"Any one. I don't care." He raked stiff fingers through his disorderly golden hair and slumped over the island counter that separated the kitchen from the living room. "A means to an end."

"Perhaps you should shower first and then drink, in that case," Leon offered, pulling down two bottles and two glasses.

Cloud reluctantly agreed, still blatantly wary of the vampire as he skirted around the counter and headed down the hall.

Less than an hour later, the blonde was passed out in Leon's bed, washed clean but now smelling of brandy.

It hadn't taken much-- not to Leon's surprise-- to leave the teacher immobile and barely conscious. The man held his liquor about as well as Demyx had in the beginning. The vampire smiled as he thought back to first meeting the mohawked teen, already half-drunk from just a few sips and spinning in circles on a stool at an empty bar. He shook his head and his thoughts wandered back to Cloud.

Leon sat gingerly on the bed next to him, lingering. He ran a finger down the man's jawline, which was highlighted by the gentle moonlight from the open window above the bed. He tenderly cupped the blonde's chin and slowly stroked his lower lip with his thumb, so light and soft that the human didn't even feel it.

Leon flinched the slightest bit when the front door slammed shut and he heard the trio's voices, engaged in loud conversation over their night's events, quickly accompanied by the sound of the TV coming on and cupboards slamming. He smiled somewhat regretfully down at the sleeping blonde and then left quietly, careful to shut the door with the utmost care so as not to make any noise.

"We were in the woods and crossed paths with a Slokum." Leon drained the last of the amber liquid from his glass.

Roxas' face contorted. He twitched involuntarily. "Those things creep the hell out of me."

Leon nodded. "I remember. He reacted worse than you did that time, Roxas."

The small blonde actually looked sympathetic for the human. He tossed the remote onto the cream colored ottoman and left the living room for the kitchen, muttering about the unnerving demons and needing to wash his hands whenever he thought of them.

"He knows about us being… you know?" Riku asked delicately from one of the tall stools next to the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room. He held one of the Slayer's jackets in hand-- a fairly high quality leather bomber that his uncle had given him years ago, apparently-- sewing up the various tears and holes that the teen had ignored due to his lack of skill or money to fix it.

Leon nodded grimly. "I didn't know what else to tell him. He was so upset."

"I'm sure he still likes you," Riku tried helpfully.

The chestnut haired vampire propped up his feet on the coffee table and sighed. "He punched me so hard that his knuckles started to bleed. I was impressed."

Demyx winced for the older vampire. "Well… heat of the moment, you know? It's a lot to take in at once! If a human's, like, not into vampires and stuff like Zexion, I'm sure it can be pretty scary to find out. He liked you before, though, so I'm sure he will again once he realizes that you're the same person as before, only dead. And stuff."

"Yeah." Leon put his chin in his hand, sighing exhaustedly.

'_That sounded so much more encouraging in my head,'_ Demyx thought unhappily, a deep, pout-ish frown settling on his lips.

The younger vampires all tried their best to console Leon-- Riku with soft words, proposing that the blonde would behave differently in the morning; Roxas by quietly fixing his sire another drink; Demyx by leaping into the eldest vampire's lap and affixing a bone-crunching hug around his middle.

"You can stop." The brunet gently eased Demyx off and shooed Riku back to sewing; he accepted Roxas' drink with a quick noise of approval. "It's not like I'm not used to having difficulties with the people I'm interested in."

All three let their eyes roam the room, anywhere but at their sire.

The vampire sighed again, wishing he didn't get so damn talkative and hurtful with the boys whenever he was upset. "Nevermind. Why is there food in the fridge?"

Riku cast a telltale glance at Roxas.

The blonde started angrily. "Leave me alone! I'm so _sick_ of you, Ri--"

"I didn't say anything!" Riku shouted back, throwing his arms up defensively. "Leon just wanted to know who made _pudding_ for a _werewo_--"

"For someone who's sniffing around the Slayer, you--"

"Hah! 'Sniffing around'! You're one to talk, dog-lover." Riku sneered at the older vampire, whose jaw had dropped open in shock and anger. "I imagine you two do plenty of sniffi--"

Demyx leapt back onto Leon's lap for safety as the petite blonde tackled Riku mid-stentence, propelling both of them out into the living room.

Leon hooked the coffee table-- dark-stained oak and glass-- with his foot and pulled it to the side just in time to keep it from being crushed as the two writhing, raging vampires landed on the floor where it had been moments before. Curses-- in four languages at least-- erupted amid snarls and hisses, punctuated by skulls being slammed against the reinforced floor and stone-on-stone punches, loud and reverberating.

"Leon, they're gonna wreck the house! Again!" Demyx whined, grasping onto his sire's white cotton shirt and burying his head. He winced as he heard a particularly thunderous thump in between calls of 'flakey old seaman' and 'pompous ass furry-lover'.

"They'll be done soon. I'll step in if it gets bad. You can go to bed," he murmured, patting the top of the vampire's head soothingly, smoothing down the protesting gelled strands.

"I hope your human feels better when he wakes up," the sandy blonde replied, making himself heard over the commotion on the floor. He offered him a quick thanks before scurrying around the chair and down the hall to his room, leaving the brunet to monitor the rest of the fight between the other two brothers.

* * *

Cloud bolted upright and threw the covers off of his body, the cold air suddenly rushing over his sweat-slicked skin making him shudder. He tried to slow his panting breaths; he rested one hand over his chest, as if willing his racing heart to calm, and ran the other hand up the side of his moist neck and tussled his dampened, clinging hair.

His brilliant blue eyes narrowed as he saw the figure sitting across from him in the darkness. "You were watching me?" It came out as more of an accusatory statement than a question, though.

Leon shifted in his chair; it was too dark for the blonde to see his expression.

Cloud threw his hands into his lap exasperatedly and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to forget the nightmare of that monster in the woods. He buried his face in his hands; his head was pounding.

"Do you need Advil? Tylenol?" the vampire asked.

Cloud froze. "No, I'm fine." A moment later, "Are you going to kill me?"

For a moment, Cloud took Leon's silence as an affirmation of that fear.

"Of course not-- I already told you that in the car. I have no intention of killing you. Why would I have protected you if I just meant to kill you later? Why would I have let you live this long?" He almost added, 'Why would I offer you Advil before killing you, you twit?'

This was one of the few times that Cloud could remember picking up emotion on Leon's voice. It sounded like equal parts offense and disappointment.

"Fatten me up first," the blonde answered mostly to himself, massaging his head gently. He was aware that Leon would probably hear it, though.

"You can't fatten up blood," Leon mumbled right back, sounding almost as pissed off as the human. "You should know that you would probably have been killed three times over if I hadn't been watching you," he added disgruntledly. "Stop walking in alleys, for God's sake. Do you even watch movies? Most humans know better."

"You were _following me_?" Cloud's grew as wide as they possibly could. "_Stalking_ me?"

"Just to make sure you got home safely. You don't show much consideration for your person, so someone has to." Leon uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Like I told you-- _alleys_. You stroll through them like you're in Disneyland."

Cloud admitted to himself that the vampire had a point in that and decided that it was, perhaps, in his best interest to take alternate routes home. He curled up Indian-style under the covers, not taking his eyes off of Leon. "So you're doing all of this for me-- uh, being a protective stalker, keeping me away from that gross thing, letting me stay here-- out of the goodness of your heart, then?"

"Not at all. I don't do things out of kindness. I can assure you that there are perfectly selfish reasons for taking care of you."

"Yeah, that's reassuring," the blonde piped, picking at his thumbnail in the manner of a nervous habit.

Cloud felt a cold pressure and looked up, coming nose-to-nose with Leon. He was momentarily stunned by how quickly and quietly the larger man had crossed the room and come into a splayed kneeling position on the bed, sitting so close to Cloud that their knees touched. He would never be used to how agilely these vampires moved. Cloud swallowed thickly, unnerved by how intense and unblinking those grey eyes really were.

"I like you very much." The vampire looked almost pained as he visibly struggled with forming the next words. "There… haven't been many people over the years that I've felt strongly for," he said carefully, now cautious of meeting Cloud's eyes. "But I'm very concerned with how you feel about me, and what you think about me. I don't want you to believe that I would intentionally hurt you. Or that you are meaningless to me. Because you're not," he added. "I wouldn't let you be harmed, even if you brought it on yourself."

Cloud inhaled slowly, deeply; somehow, over the course of his monologue, the vampire had very effectively pushed himself forward, up and over the smaller man's body, forcing Cloud to recline back on his elbows underneath him. The school teacher was highly aware of how their chests touched whenever he breathed in, at how close their mouths were-- if Leon had been breathing, he was certain he would have felt the brunette's breath ghosting over his skin.

"Buuut," Cloud started slowly, unsurely, "you're a vampire." He squinted as he continued. "Don't you think of humans as food?"

"Not always. Besides, this has been known to happen on occasion. More often than I think the Palliata would like to pretend."

"The Palli--"

Cloud was cut off mid-word as Leon pressed his lips against the man's and pushed him all the way down onto the mattress. The teacher squirmed underneath, simultaneously yearning for the contact while being repulsed by the odd, cold feeling-- the knowledge of what Leon really was never left him entirely. He could feel the tips of fangs delicately raking over his lips, soft and light as a butterfly kiss, careful not to break the skin there. Every time Leon's tingly cold tongue touched his own there was that strange combination of pleasure and discomfort.

It wasn't until the ache in Cloud's lungs made him scratch and beat against Leon's muscular shoulders and chest that the vampire relented and pulled back-- just an inch. His face hovered above the human's, his gaze always focused on the teacher's ever-changing expressions.

The blonde gasped and sputtered, arching his back as he tried to catch his breath.

"You're so hot," the vampire murmured as he gradually lifted himself off of the bed, until he stood with just one bent knee resting on the edge.

Cloud blushed a bright scarlet. "Th-thank-- oh… you mean in temperature."

The vampire shrugged. "In both," he assured the man on the bed.

Cloud sat up awkwardly. "I'm sorry about… hitting you earlier. I panicked."

Leon smiled at the apology. "No harm done. You are strong for a human, though."

"Well, I'm not a pansy," Cloud said in offense. "I didn't take boxing lessons in high school for nothing." He gazed down at his hands, clasped together weakly in his lap, and muttered, "I'd like it if you would go ahead and tell me more about all of this."

Leon's eyebrows raised the barest bit, but Cloud caught it.

"The better I understand, the more… comfortable I'll be," he explained. "With you."

"Yes. I'd like that. We can talk in a little while, if you want." As Leon turned to leave the room, a quiet 'ahh', pulled him back. "Hm?"

"If you get the chance, I really would like some Advil. Coffee, if you have it. And food. Although I'm sure you could hear my stomach growling already."

"I thought it would be polite not to mention it," the brunet admitted, the trace of an amused smile on his lips. "Is that all?"

"Oh, please flip the lights," Cloud said quickly, looking to the floor in embarrassment a moment after. "I'd rather make the headache worse than sit alone in the dark for a minute."

* * *

**It's really long, but I finally got around to Cloud and Leon, so I hope that's pleasing. :D**

**Reviews are well-appreciated.**


	11. Selene

**Thanks to everyone that reviewed, in particular to Miss Alise this time and combo-bass for her betaing. **

"_The calm, cool face of the river_

_Asked me for a kiss."_

_--Langston Hughes, Suicide's Note_

* * *

"For the last time, Roxas, I don't want to go."

Axel plunked the groceries-- could you really call them groceries? Roxas picked out the most inane things to buy-- down on the counter and put his hands on his hips, huffing. After a moment's pause he started pulling items from the paper bags and placing them in the pantry and fridge, his lips tightened into a firm line.

Roxas shut the man's apartment door quietly and padded into the kitchen to help.

"I know that," he said with a sigh. "And believe me, I dislike the thought of visiting the den of a bunch of stinking werewolves as much as you do, but…"

"'But' nothing," the redheaded bartender growled as he stuffed packages of meat into the vegetable drawer at the bottom of the fridge. "There's no point, and I'd rather not waste tomorrow night on something pointless. If I were to close the bar for a night, I'd better have a damn good reason."

"Don't you want to find out why you were bitten?" Roxas' voice rose and he slammed his hand on the counter, the forceful sound threatening to wake the neighbors. "Don't you want some explanation, an apology, revenge, _something_?" he questioned incredulously, his whole body shaking.

"No, but it looks like you do," the werewolf said darkly, shrugging his wide shoulders and returning to unloading the groceries.

The blonde sobered at Axel's words and tone. He swallowed thickly and crossed his arms, then uncrossed them again when he saw that the redhead was paying him no mind. He bit lightly on his lower lip as he crossed the kitchen.

Axel stiffened as he felt the small, hard body press up against his side, cool arms wrapping around his midsection. One hand traveled up his chest, coming to a stop right over his steadily thudding heart. "I do. I… I know I blame a lot of how I treated you on your becoming a werewolf," he murmured, his head nestling against Axel's ribs, "and that it was my own fault for trying to ignore you, and not yours, and not werewolves' in general," he continued, the tone of the last few words betraying his disdain. "But I still can't help but be upset that this happened to you so suddenly and without any explanation-- and all that," he finished lamely, too embarrassed to further bring up Axel's experience post-bite when he knew that his own behavior had contributed much to the werewolf's misery.

"You understand that, right?" the vampire asked, leaning back and looking up at the redhead for confirmation. "That I want you to have an understanding of what happened to you and why. And maybe to find the werewolf responsible and punish it, or at least have the packleader be aware, so that he or she could tighten things up. Beasts like that have no place on the streets."

Axel half-smiled at that. "I don't think there's anything else to understand," he said plainly, ruffling the yellow spikes of hair as Roxas made a noise of protest. "But I hadn't thought of it that way," he admitted. "If that was an accident, I want the pack leader to know about it, so it won't happen again. So no normal person thinks they're going home with a dog bite and then suddenly turns. Or worse."

Roxas blinked thoughtfully and then buried his head in the werewolf's side and groaned. "God, why didn't I just use the sentimental angle from the start? I should have known that would be what cracked you."

"Yes. Yes, you should've," Axel agreed.

* * *

"How long did you have to track these guys?" the redhead asked as they approached a number of tenement houses on the edge of town. He surveyed them with skeptical, quietly judging eyes. Most of the buildings seemed in shambles, with only a few showing signs of inhabitation-- trash in the garbage cans, laundry hanging out to dry. But he reasoned that the location must be ideal, with the dump field filled with old tires and trash off to the left leading straight into the woods.

"A long time. I don't know how they do it--" his lips quirked up in a smile as he spoke "-- but they're good at covering up their trails. Even this close it's hard to tell there are even any werewolves nearby. Excluding you, obviously," he added. "But diligence pays off. Of course, you could have found them about a hundred times more easily. But since you lacked motivation, I thought I'd give it a shot."

"Are you nervous about being surrounded by werewolves?" the bartender asked concernedly as they grew ever closer to the apartment building. He turned to his right to look at Roxas, only to see an empty stretch of road. He looked around quickly, soon spotting the vampire a few paces behind him, stopped in the middle of the empty road.

Roxas sniffed, on the verge of a full-fledged frown as he met the werewolf's eyes. "I can't come in with you," he said simply. "You know that. They try this hard to keep us from even finding their home. You think they'd let me inside?"

Axel's mouth opened slightly, unsure of what to do. Going alone into the dwelling of a dozen or more werewolves-- possibly including the one that had bitten him in the first place-- was not appealing whatsoever. He had thoughtlessly assumed that his vampire would be with him every step of the way, and learning otherwise was a blow to his security.

"Any vampires that go inside of a werewolf den end up dead. If not from the wolves themselves, then from other vampires. No one likes a traitor," he finished quietly. He was focused on the ground, his one hand clutching the other arm hanging at his side, looking impossibly pathetic for someone usually so assured.

Axel retreated back to the blonde, wrapping his arms around him and murmuring that it would be alright, that it would be okay.

"No, nevermind," Roxas protested quietly, pushing him away. "Don't worry about it! I didn't mean to distract you. Just go on and get this over with."

Axel's forehead furrowed. "But--"

"You'll be perfectly fine," Roxas assured him. "Werewolves take care of other werewolves. Just go in and ask to see the leader, and explain what happened. If- if anything bad should happen-- which I don't think will-- just come back out," he said tiredly, almost pleadingly.

Axel exhaled deeply, running a hand through his hair.

"I don't like being separated from you like this," the vampire agreed, fidgeting. "So hurry up, because I'll be out here kicking myself for suggesting this in the first place the entire time you're in there," he said sourly.

Axel smiled and pressed a kiss to the blonde's cold, smooth forehead. He brushed over the spot that his lips had touched with his thumb, reluctant to go. A gentle push on his chest from the blonde made him take a step back and he finally turned and headed toward the den.

It wasn't long before Axel stood on the stoop, his finger hesitating over the doorknob. When he finally gathered up the nerve to press it, he discovered that it didn't work. He groaned. This time, without hesitation, he grabbed the heavy knocker on the door and banged.

There was a moment of waiting before the door cracked open and a single nose stuck out, sniffing quickly. Then the door shut.

Axel could hear chains and locks being unfastened, and then the door swung fully open. The man at the door greeted him with a dip of his head. The redhead smiled and murmured a 'hello' to the gruff werewolf, whose beard and hair looked unkempt. He figured they would almost stand shoulder-to-shoulder, if the wider man wasn't so hunched over.

"I need to speak to the leader here," he said tentatively. He noticed the guarding werewolf trying to peer around him, out the doorway. _'Probably looking for Roxas,'_ he realized. He shuffled his body to the side, filling the doorway and blocking the man's view. "The leader?" he repeated.

The werewolf looked up at him skeptically but answered, pointing down the hallway. "Then go down the stairs on the left."

"Thanks," Axel said with a nod. He wrapped his hand around the edge of the door and slammed it shut as he strode down the hall, leaving the man no chance to sneak a glimpse of Roxas. The redhead hoped he was hiding. And safe. And not too worried.

He passed several rooms as he headed down the hallway. Most were easy to see into, either with the door flung open or simply no door at all. He saw what looked to be the kitchen, filled with three refrigerators and two ovens, at least from what he could see. The people inside, leaning against the countertops as they sipped on beers and sodas and laughed at each other's stories, quieted down and watched him intently as he passed. Another room housed multiple sets of washers and dryers, with an older woman and two young children folding mismatched, threadbare towels.

The smell was surprising. He could pick apart the scents if he tried, but for the most part, he didn't notice them. The way they blended together felt natural, low-key, almost like his sense of smell hadn't even changed from his human days. He was beginning to see why werewolves liked other werewolves' company-- there was a sense of belonging, of normality within this.

Axel reached the stairs and paused before stepping down them at a slow trudge. He had no idea of what to expect at the bottom, and was suddenly sharply aware of his status as an outsider in the midst of what seemed like a very large, very close group.

The stairs ended in a basement room that looked quite ordinary, except for the two cages placed in the corners along the opposite stretch of wall, one of which looked like it had seen better days. The floors were a plain gray concrete, all left bare except for one large rug spread out at the bottom of the stairs. Other than that, there was a tired-looking couch, a coffee table stacked with magazines and photo albums, and a number of big freezers, humming quietly. There was no one here, though.

Axel spotted a doorway that led to another room, and took a step toward it. "Hello?" he called cautiously. Another step. "Hey, anyone there?"

"Hold your horses," a voice answered, sounding annoyed.

Axel was taken aback. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but the young voice was not it. As he thought back now, he figured he had been listening for a booming, authoritative voice. Maybe coming from a large, muscular type, not too unlike the werewolf at the door upstairs. A burly pack leader.

The figure that emerged from the darkened doorway could not have been more different. He was of medium height, sinuous, and had dark, gold-toned skin. Axel supposed he would have been quite good looking if he didn't have engine grease smeared all over his face and clothing.

"Well, what are you here for?" he asked impatiently, flicking a wisp of burnished gold hair out of his face. Black grease from his fingers clung to the strands, although the werewolf leader didn't seem to care. He twirled a wrench in one hand as he waited for an answer.

"Uh…" Axel scratched the back of his head. "I'm not sure where to begin," he admitted.

"How about the beginning?" the young man said flatly. "I'm trying to fix something, and it's sort of important, so I'd appreciate a little haste on your part."

"Right. Sorry," Axel replied, his own temper rising slightly. "Well, a few weeks ago, I was bitten, and I thought it was a dog at first, but…"

The bartender trailed off, having seen the sudden change in the pack leader's demeanor. The dark-skinned werewolf looked disconcerted. He swallowed audibly and placed the wrench on top of one of the freezers, frowning.

"I'm Ihsan." He stuck his hand out to Axel to shake. They both looked down at it at the same time and decided otherwise. "Sorry about that," he apologized, rubbing his hands on the sides of his jeans to try and clean them of some of the black fluid.

"Not a problem. I'm Axel, by the way."

"Axel," Ihsan said with a nod and a brief smile.

Axel found himself getting very upset and perturbed by how sad the werewolf looked when he smiled at him.

"Do you… do you remember what the werewolf that bit you looked like?" the pack leader questioned quietly, gesturing for the redhead to sit next to him on the couch as he spoke.

He felt the weathered sofa sag beneath their weight as he sat down. "No. No, not really. It was dark," Axel explained. "I was on my way home from work-- I work nights, at a bar-- and I was walking home the usual way." He shook his head and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands. "It-- er, he, maybe-- came tearing down an alley, right as I was walking past it. I saw it running toward me and I closed my eyes and stuck my arm up to block it, and I felt it bite into me as it knocked me down, but then it was up and running again."

He felt Ihsan's eyes on him-- not on his face, but instead on his side-- and looked down to see his fingertips tracing over the scaring along his forearm. He realized he'd been doing it the entire time he was talking.

"I see. When was this again?" the other werewolf asked guardedly.

Axel studied him for a moment before answering. "The fifteenth."

"I see," he said again.

Axel's mood soured in an instant. "Look, _Ihsan_," he said heatedly, "I came here for answers, and to tell you about a problem that your pack is having that you're not even aware of, so I'd like it if you could at least show a fucking ounce of interest in the fact that someone here is running around and infecting innocent people, and maybe killing them! Who the hell knows?"

"I'm aware of that problem. I _was_ aware, I should say," he corrected, his tone a mix of indignation and remorse.

The redheaded werewolf's head bobbed back slightly. "So, you know about this? Do you know- do you know who bit me? Why?" he asked eagerly, leaning forward as he faced the smaller werewolf.

He glanced to the side, hesitating. Axel could see the doubt in the pack leader's faded green eyes. "I did." Ihsan finally met the redhead's determined, searching look and sighed. "It's just that it was so long ago. Usually, when someone is bitten, someone like you, we find out about it within days. Either they find us, or we find them-- usually the latter. When the days passed and we heard nothing regarding any new younglings, we assumed that no one else had been attacked." He paused, biting his lip. "You'll want to hear the whole thing, I'm sure?"

Axel nodded, only barely stopping short of blurting out, "Duh".

"His name was Marz," he stated simply. "He escaped-- we were holding him in that cage," he murmured, pointing over his shoulder at the battered bars, "and killed three people… and attacked you, as well, apparently. He was having a lot of trouble controlling himself when he changed. He was a youngling, like you, but the wolf was just too strong for him to contain. You seem to be handling yourself pretty well," the werewolf added, giving him a pleasantly surprised smile.

"Anyway, he came to us-- me and Eli, my second-in-command, not the pack plural-- a few weeks ago, telling us that he was scared, that he thought he'd already killed one person while transformed. We took that seriously. But we hoped that he could overcome it with time, so we locked him up to prevent any other casualties and took turns guarding him."

"But he got out." Axel frowned as he said the words, noticing that the other werewolf's expression was similarly dismal.

"He did. Marz was a good person, but he couldn't find the balance needed to stay in control. When he broke free, I believe Eli tried to subdue him," Ihsan shrugged slightly. "He didn't want to kill him. But Marz-- who probably was no longer 'Marz' at this point-- didn't have the same concerns. It was overkill, what he did to Eli."

Axel felt uncomfortable, though he wasn't certain whether it was because the pack leader's body language and wavering voice suggested intimate closeness to the deceased or because he was simply unnerved about being in the same room as the murdered man they were discussing. The redhead couldn't help but glance around, as though he'd suddenly notice scratch marks on the wall, or a missed spot of blood still left on the ceiling.

Ihsan caught the young werewolf's wandering gaze. "We found him more toward the stairs," he said blankly, nodding toward the staircase behind the redhead. "There were claw marks left in the floor from him trying to push Marz back. That's why there's a rug there now."

Axel blinked in appalled shock, his mouth hanging open.

"But that doesn't have anything to do with you or your incident," the werewolf leader said quickly, looking embarrassed for getting sidetracked. "Once Marz got through Eli, he tore out onto the streets. It was so late, and everyone was either out or upstairs sleeping. It wasn't until we got a call from a pack member who happened to see Marz running as he was headed home that we even started organizing a hunt for him. We followed his scent and came across two bodies as we tracked him, but we never saw you." He tilted his head and looked at the bartender.

"I left," Axel explained. "As soon as it happened, I got up and ran the last two blocks to my apartment. The last thing I wanted to do was linger out there."

Ihsan frowned. "No, that makes perfect sense. We just didn't consider that. When no new werewolves showed up, that possibility was just forgotten. It was my lapse, my poor judgment made in distress."

"What happened to him? When you found him?" The bartender had an inkling-- more than an inkling, actually-- of what had happened to the uncontrollable werewolf, but he wanted to know for certain.

"Being leader comes with some very unpleasant duties," Ihsan said slowly. "Marz was a danger to humans, to other werewolves. I can't deny that I wasn't upset about Eli, either. I killed him. There wasn't really any other option left for him. There usually isn't for berserk werewolves. They have no place here."

Axel nodded. He leaned back in the sofa, hearing it groan and creak and sag as he did, trying to absorb everything.

"I'm sorry that you had to go through all of… _it_," he waved his hand in a circle as he said the word, "alone. Most of us do, but that doesn't make it any less difficult. Some kind of support, any kind of support, makes a world of difference to a werewolf's development."

"Oh, I wasn't alone," Axel corrected.

"Really?" Ihsan sat up at that, smiling. "Well, that would explain why you're so well-adjusted for someone coming in off of the streets."

"Really?" the redhead asked right back.

"Of course. I mean, for those of us who had no one, who came into it unknowingly, it's a terrifying experience. You think you're a monster. You force yourself to leave home, to run for miles-- at least while you still have some grip on your mind-- just to keep from hurting the people you care about. By the time you gain some sense of control, you don't even feel like you can go back. You end up abandoning your whole life, for the most part. That's why I was surprised at how _normal_ you seem. You don't even come off as being less than a month old."

Axel grinned lightly. "I'm lucky. I had a friend that took care of me when I first changed, and then hunted me down when I escaped, and took care of me, talked to me, until I was well enough to start living by myself again."

"That is lucky," the bronze-skinned werewolf agreed. "Humans aren't particularly accepting of a loved one growing a snout and fur," he chuckled.

"Yeah, well, he's the Slayer so it's sort of in his bag, I guess."

"The Slayer? You know the Slayer?"

Axel inhaled, wondering if that had been the wrong name to drop in this conversation. "Is… is that bad?"

The pack leader blinked. "N-no, of course not. He kills vampires and doesn't bother werewolves. That makes him pretty highly ranked in our book," he said with a smile. "Not that he _needs_ to bother with us. We self-regulate fairly well."

"So, you don't like vampires, huh?" the redhead asked, grimacing a bit.

"They're not our cup of tea, no, but we live and let live, as long as they do the same." He looked seriously at the lanky werewolf. "I'm assuming that anyone that goes without pack support for their first three weeks isn't desperate for a home and a place, but this place is always open to you, if you need it. And if any vampires give you a hard time, you come here. Werewolves are the Legos of the supernatural world-- we stick together."

Axel snorted before giving in and chuckling. "I'll remember that, but I'm not too worried about the vampires. I've been dealing with them for a couple of years now. If anything, I'm better prepared to handle them than ever."

"Well, that's excellent," the lithe pack leader said as he rose from the couch with a groan, stretching his arms high above his head and popping his back. "We'll be keeping an eye and an ear out for you, though, just to be sure."

The redhead tilted his head and grimaced. He could tell that Ihsan was that type, the sort that checked in on people and tried to find out if they had any problems that he could take care of. The sort that wasn't dissuaded by any argument otherwise. That needed to be told everything o f importance. "Well… then I guess I should probably put this out in the open before you find out about it some other way," he said slowly, looking up at the other werewolf with slight anxiety. "I'm sort of… involved with a- a vampire."

Ihsan snorted, grinning widely. "Yeah, right! You and a vampire…" His face fell after a moment. "Oh, God. You're seriously serious."

"Very much so," the bartender confirmed, scratching the back of his head nervously.

The dark-skinned young man stared at him through narrowed eyes, considering. Axel could see him chewing his tongue as he thought. "You're not a part of my pack, so it's not my place to tell you who is off-limits," he said finally, his shoulders sagging tiredly. "But I would be very selective of who you fraternize with." He snorted again. "And just when I was thinking that I wouldn't have to worry over you…"

Axel shrugged as he stood up from the couch. "Thanks," he said with a nod. "You know, it's funny, but I hadn't even really wanted to tell you about that," he muttered somewhat embarrassedly as he shook Ihsan's hand, now unconcerned with the traces of grease that were still clinging to his fingers. "It sort of came out…"

The pack leader chuckled and shook his head. "Ah, well, werewolves have a way of responding to those in charge. A compulsion to be honest, especially about feelings and questionable decisions. Which is good, because we're so group-oriented-- I don't think we could survive as a pack if I wasn't aware of the emotional dynamics going on."

"So you're in on all the gossip, huh?"

"All of it. But you'd be surprised how far a little openness goes to cutting down on infighting," he said with raised eyebrows. "It's a good thing you told me, though. I can make sure no one sees you with your, eh, 'vampire friend' and thinks you're being held hostage or something and causes a ruckus." The werewolf walked Axel back over to the stairs, his hands buried deep in the large pockets of his grease-stained khaki pants. "I hope you got some sort of closure from this, if nothing else."

Axel sighed and nodded. "I did. I thought I didn't really care to find out-- and I guess I could have lived without knowing, you know-- but I'm glad I got the whole story now. And all of this," he added pointing back and forth between himself and Ihsan. "That was good. I sort of wish I'd manned up and found a way to come down here sooner. I could've saved myself a lot of nights of thinking it was some kind of malicious attack on me or something."

"I'm sorry." Ihsan leaned against the wall, hands still in his pockets. "Those are pretty horrible thoughts to be saddled with. And I don't think saying that it was an accident, y'know, random, makes it alright, but--"

"It's just good to know," the redhead interrupted, glancing around the basement room one last time. Both of them sat in silence for a few seconds. "Uh, Ihsan, I don't mean to be a jerk and bring up a whole bunch of shit for you, or anything like that, but… how can you stay down here? After what happened?" His bright green eyes squinted as he asked, trying to fathom how he would ever be able to even bear _seeing_ the place that Sora or Roxas were killed in-- heaven forbid something like that happened-- even years afterward, much less _weeks_.

Ihsan looked up at him and smiled, though his eyes stayed sad. "Attachment does strange things to you. I couldn't even come near here for the first three days after he died. But very soon I came to long to be down here, the place I feel closest to him. This was where Eli and I spent most of our time together-- building things, fixing things. It's enough that I sometimes feel like I'll turn around and see him. One terrible memory can't erase all of the good, wonderful ones I have of being down here, so…" He lifted his shoulders lightly. "That's how."

* * *

"What did they say?" Roxas asked urgently as soon as there werewolf had crossed the street. He darted out from behind the pitiful remains of what used to be a fence-- many of the posts now cracked in half and random portions of the fence completely missing, almost as if vehicles had backed into sections repeatedly over the years-- and met the redhead as soon as he stepped foot out of the werewolf territory. "Well?"

Axel shrugged. "The one who bit me is already dead. He attacked a couple of other people that night, killed 'em, so the pack leader executed him."

The blonde raised his eyebrows slightly. "Awfully convenient. You're positive he isn't lying?" he asked a little darkly, looking up at the werewolf with marked suspicion in his eyes.

The redheaded bartender thought back to the meeting with Ihsan. "No, I'm pretty sure it's the truth."

The vampire grunted slightly, the tone letting Axel know that he wasn't totally convinced, and then turned, gesturing for the tall man to follow. "Did you get any details?"

"Yeah-- his name, the events prior, etcetera," he said as he followed the blonde back down the alley they'd arrived through. "I won't bore you with them."

Roxas whirled around, his index finger poking Axel in the chest. "_Bore_ me? It's what you came here to learn. It's not going to bore me," he said with a frown. "Everything you learned about that night concerns you deeply, and what concerns you concerns me. Is that clear?"

"Crystal," the redhead murmured, eyes widened at the slender vampire. A soft smile lit his lips. "Let's walk and talk," he said, glancing at his watch. "We'll go over to your place so you can finally give me whatever surprise it is you've been talking about for the last two nights. Might as well make full use of my night off, right?"

* * *

"I'm nervous."

Sora shuffled back and forth in front of the elevator doors as they waited for them to open. He turned twisted his hands anxiously around the neck of the wine bottle in his hands-- it was cheap, and surely paled in comparison to what the vampires were used to drinking, alcohol-wise, but it was all that the Slayer could afford. Riku had assured him that it was the thought behind the gift that mattered, and that at least the bottle itself was sort of pretty and well-designed. The glass was tinted blue and the label was covered in light pink and silver polka-dots.

"Don't be. The only new person you're meeting is Leon, anyway. And he's a walk in the park compared to Roxas."

The brunet sighed as the gleaming metal doors finally clicked open, revealing a mercifully empty elevator. Sora slouched in after the vampire, his shoulders sagging despondently.

The Slayer had always pictured Riku living somewhere chic and high-class, but seeing it for real was something entirely different. He guessed it was because he'd never imagined the vampire family living in the midst of so many humans-- maybe in an elegant home in the countryside, or a fancy townhouse, at least. But not in an upscale apartment complex, with people mingling on all the floors below them, sharing the elevator, opening the doors for them, smiling to them in the hallways.

It was bizarre and frightening to think that they blended in so well, that vampires could coexist with humans without even giving themselves away while picking people off one at a time. Sora had to remind himself that Riku had not always been this friendly-- he had the scars to prove it-- and that a trip to a powerful vampire's nest would have been a borderline suicide mission a few months ago.

'_This is just as nerve-wracking as a suicide mission, though,'_ he thought glumly as the elevator began the slow ascent to the top floor. "I know he's the only one that I haven't met yet, but he's like your dad, right?" He recalled the sketch of the stern-looking vampire from the bingo book and sighed again.

"Uh… in a way." Riku shifted awkwardly, grimacing a bit at the comparison. "Vampire relationships are complex and, at times, somewhat disturbing. Things get tangled when you live so long and associate with so few," he finished weakly.

"Oh. Well, he's a pretty important person to you, and I want to make a good impression." Sora inhaled deeply, strengthening his resolve to come off as a well-adjusted, charming, and upstanding young demon-Slayer. "They know I'm coming, right? They're not going to think I'm here to kill them, right?"

Riku raised his eyebrows and stared at the boy. "No one's going to attack you, Slayer."

"I didn't mean it like that! I just don't want there to be a misunderstanding," he said miserably, wanting nothing more than to ride the elevator back down to the first floor and leave the building at top speed. It was bad enough that he already felt stressed by his impending meeting with Riku's immediate family in its entirety, but the fact that the staff had glared him and his thrift store clothing down from the moment he stepped foot into the lobby hadn't boosted his confidence at all.

"You'll be fine," the vampire said with a smile. "He'll like you, I'm sure. Demyx already loves you. And Roxas, though he would sooner gouge out his eyes than admit it, is alright with you."

Sora made a soft grunt in response, and then gulped as they finally reached the top floor. "I still can't believe you live in a place like this," he mumbled as they stepped out of the elevator.

"Leon made sure to soundproof it, replace the windows with bulletproof glass, reinforce the walls and floor… it takes months of work before we can move in somewhere with humans nearby." Riku grinned to the Slayer as he searched for a key. "And we go through furniture like tissues."

"I'm nervous," the teen whispered to the vampire's back as he gripped the doorknob.

Riku look back over his shoulder, cerulean eyes soft and smiling. "Don't be."

* * *

'_It wasn't as bad as it could have been_,' Sora thought. And the potential for disaster had been enormous.

Sure, Sora had balked and stuttered when he'd presented the modest bottle to Leon, but the eldest vampire had smiled and taken the wine congenially. And Demyx, peering over the vampire's shoulder at the gift, had also offered an approving, glowing smile-- not that Sora was surprised. Demyx wasn't exactly hard to please.

He couldn't keep his hands from shaking, though, or slow his heart back to its usual pace. He figured it was just his body's almost programmed reaction to being surrounded by vampires, even if they were friendly. Nonetheless, Sora hoped they didn't see it as impolite.

"So you're the Slayer."

Sora found himself wishing that he had a voice like Leon's-- deep and quietly authoritative, the same sort of voice that the naga Anik had, the kind he'd _imagined_ a Slayer as having. He knew it would never happen, though-- he'd have to drop an octave. He tried to make his voice deep and strong anyway when he answered. "Yes, sir."

Chocolate brown eyebrows rose, possibly out of amusement at the odd timber, but only barely. "Thank you for taking care of Riku," the reserved and imposing vampire said softly, crossing his arms as he switched his gaze from the Slayer to the vampire he'd sired.

"Hey," Riku said in mild offense. "More than half the time it was _me_ doing the caretaking," he pointed out sourly.

Sora stuck his tongue out at the vampire. "I would argue--"

"Hush." Riku slipped an arm around the Slayer's shoulders, his alabaster hand coming around to cover the teen's mouth.

Before the brunet teen could decide whether to slobber on the offending hand or just to chomp a finger, he picked up on the muffled sounds coming from behind him, from behind the door to the apartment-- what sounded like conversation and brief spots of laughter. Following Demyx's and Leon's gaze past them, Sora and Riku both turned to look at the heavy, darkly wooded door they'd just entered through a few minutes before.

The door opened with a quick click, already left unlocked by Riku, and Roxas was already three steps over the threshold before he noticed the four sets of eyes watching him. He stopped abruptly, looking peeved, and Axel-- gigantic in comparison as he loomed behind the blonde-- mowed right into him.

Oversized hands on the end of long, leanly muscled arms caught the vampire before he'd even begun to fall. "Sorry. I can't see you if I'm looking straight ahead, Rox." He righted the small blonde and smoothed out his clothing, smiling affectionately all the while.

"Don't let us be a bother," Riku said lazily, eyeing the older but tinier vampire with a decidedly entertained look.

Sora turned back to face Leon and Demyx, struggling to keep from chuckling as he heard Roxas' embarrassed and venomous 'Stop doing that!' and the following slap, which he assumed was the vampire stopping Axel's wandering-- if only while trying to be helpful-- hands.

"Just stopping by to pick something up," the redhead explained to the group as he shut the door while Roxas made a beeline for the kitchen. He nodded his head in the direction of Leon, already seeming familiar with him, and flashed a smile to Demyx, who grinned right back. "Didn't expect to see _you_ here," he said as he came to stand next to the Slayer.

"Right back at ya," Sora agreed. The teen had to stifle a giggle as he realized that Axel was mouth breathing, trying desperately not to inhale through his nose. He imagined it must be incredibly hard for the werewolf, being right in the center of the accumulated smell of four vampires, having no break from what supposedly felt like cramming horseradish and chili powder into your nostrils. That didn't make it any less funny, though.

"Here it is," Roxas announced from the kitchen area, proudly and carefully setting a glass bowl onto the counter. The contents looked like dark sludge, possibly the sort that would be scooped up from the pond out in the barren stretch of land about twenty miles east of Sunnydale that was "rumored" to have been used for some clandestine hazardous waste dumping. (Sora put mental quotes around 'rumored', because after catching two fish-men in tattered hazmat suits wandering around on the east side of town and subsequently releasing them into the ocean Free Willy style, he was certain that those weren't rumors, but facts.)

"Roxas! This looks great!" Axel exclaimed as he left the tiny group for his blonde and his questionable dish, far too animated and jovial to be telling the truth-- but that fact seemed lost on Roxas alone.

"I spent four hours making it. I had to go back to the store for more boxes. It was worth it, though," the blonde vampire said with a nonchalant shrug that did nothing to hide his pride.

The pleased note in Roxas' voice was impossible to miss, and though Sora was reluctant to admit it, it was kind of endearing to see the vampire actually trying to impress Axel. With _cooking_, much less. _'Not that instant pudding really counts as cooking,'_ he told himself.

By now the whole group had come to surround the counter, examining the bowl of pudding that Roxas grinned and gloated over like it was a soufflé. Sora peered down and saw lumps and chunks dotting the uneven surface and hoped that the blonde hadn't included the cardboard boxes or the inner plastic wrappers as part of the recipe.

"Mmm, I can't wait to eat it," Axel said enthusiastically. His bright smile faltered slightly. "Did you not cover this while it was sitting in the fridge?"

Roxas froze. "Was I supposed to?"

Axel waved it off, scoffing. "Nah, nah, doesn't matter at all. It's just, uh, when you cover it all this condensation collects on the top and it's really gross, so I'm glad you didn't," the redhead lied. He stuck a hesitantly curious finger into the bowl and poked the pudding-- its thick skin prevented him from collecting any on his fingertip to taste, instead leaving just a tiny, finger-sized indention in the chunky outer shell of solidified pudding. "Looks delicious."

The small vampire accepted this and went back to fawning over his culinary creation, amiably chatting with Demyx about the lengthy procedure he'd undertaken to make it.

Riku propped his chin up in his hand, his elbow resting on the table, and smiled mockingly over at the redhead. Axel mimicked the same position and grinned, showing off pointed canines as he hissed 'Don't say a word' through his teeth.

The silver-haired vampire was still smiling when he pointedly turned to Roxas. "Don't you think he should just eat it here? You two just stay for a while! It'll save you the trouble of getting the bowl back later, and you'll get to see the look on his face as he enjoys it," Riku suggested. "Plus, he's a werewolf, so he can eat it all in one sitting, no problem. They're like garbage disposals."

"That's true. You haven't eaten in almost two hours, right, Axel?" Roxas asked. "You must be hungry by now. I'll get you a spoon."

Sora grimaced as he looked at the bowl of pudding. He turned to Axel to offer some words of encouragement, but saw that the werewolf was too busy glaring daggers at Riku to notice.

"Here, let's go sit over on the couch so I can watch you eat it," Roxas ordered, handing Axel a hefty soup ladle as he passed him. The redhead obediently followed, his spiky red head lowered like that of a man on his way to the gallows, the bowl of chunky, solidified dairy product in hand.

It was too much for Riku, who buried his head in his arms on the counter and shook with laughter.

"You shouldn't get so much joy out of causing misery for my friends. _Friend_. I only have one. All the more reason to not drive him away."

The vampire raised his head; Sora could see the tears of laugher-- sparkling blood-red-- welling up in the corners of his eyes. "Not true. You have me."

Sora paused for a split second and then smiled, leaning in toward the vampire. "Not the same. We both know you're…" His smile faded as he searched for the word. "Different."

"Me? _Different_?" He scoffed. "Perish the thought."

"You know what I mean," Sora complained, blushing. "You're a friend now, but you're not-- not _only_ a friend."

As soon as Sora caught the look in Riku's eyes, he knew he was dead. The vampire had gotten that first whiff of blood in the water, and he wasn't stopping now.

"Oh? Do go on," he said lowly, encouragingly. He leaned in toward the brunet, his ethereal, almost glowing eyes intent on him.

"There's nothing to go on abou--"

"What am I that's more than a friend?" he pursued, more urgent now, edging even closer to the Slayer.

Sora paused to take a shuddering breath; he glanced around to make sure no one was close. To his relief, Demyx and Leon had both moved to the living area and ended up sitting across from Roxas and Axel, putting even more pressure on the werewolf to finish the bowl-- Demyx was loudly urging him to lick it clean afterward, and Axel was repressing gags as he scooped each spoonful into his mouth.

"You're… I don't see you as having to end at being a friend," he said in a rush. And once he'd gotten that out into the open, more followed of its own volition. "In fact, you're the first person I've ever really wanted--"

Riku was hanging on the edge, waiting for the rest, but Sora just met his gaze with wide, stricken eyes, realizing that he himself was unsure of how to end that sentence, or whether it was already complete.

The moment was like the brief second before a wave comes crashing down over your head-- thick and static, where you bob out of the water and look up with only enough time to realize that you're about to be swept up and that nothing you can do will change that.

When Sora felt Riku grabbing him, pulling him from his seat and pushing him back against the counter so that the edge pressed into the middle of his back almost painfully, he grabbed right back. His hands twisted in the cool, smooth fabric of his shirt, wrinkling it, almost tearing it. He felt Riku doing the same to his t-shirt, seizing the cotton where it covered his sides and fisting it so fiercely that the Slayer could feel the fabric stretching and hear the threads popping.

Hard, cold lips collided with his own warm, soft ones-- the firmness of Riku's flesh resulted in a kiss that felt only slightly less bruising than meeting lips with a stone sculpture, but it was a pressure and a solidity that Sora appreciated. It felt right to love this strongly, to be able to push and pull without fear of hurting each other. He knew his grip on the vampire's shoulder was tight enough to make his pale skin grow even paler, to bruise a normal person, that his own enthusiastic kisses and bites were affecting the achingly cold man just as much the ones _he_ dealt to the Slayer.

The jabbing pressure of Riku's unyielding body pushing him into the edge of the counter was unnoticeable when coupled with the unrelenting slide of their bodies against each other and the barely broken contact of their lips. The sheer momentum of their contact kept anything else from creeping into his mind-- it was only the building tension of cold hands slipping up his sides and his jaw hastily bumping Riku's while they twisted and angled as they kissed.

"Ugh, I can't believe I have to witness this in my own home," Roxas was saying in disgusted tones behind them, his words punctuated with an entirely real gag.

"Hey, _we've_ done worse than that," Axel chided quietly-- although not quietly enough, as everyone in the room heard it anyway.

"Not. In front. Of everyone," the blonde hissed back, his words meaning both '_we_ have the decency to keep it private' and 'shut up if you can't learn how to whisper'.

By now Sora and Riku were both frozen in place, with Sora pinned by Riku's front to the island counter, and Riku's back to his family and Axel. It was actually somewhat amazing how quickly the awareness of prying eyes made the moment dissipate.

Sora was panting heavily, almost ready to collapse from the incredibly strong but completely dissonant feelings of utter mortification and extreme arousal. He thanked all things good for Riku's stance, which luckily blocked him completely from the sight of the three vampires and the one werewolf. While he couldn't see his own face, if Sora had to rank his blush from one to ten based on the sheer burning of his cheeks and ears, he was hovering around a twenty. Utter mortification was winning this internal battle.

And Riku didn't look much better. The Slayer had never seen the vampire in a state like this, his eyes wide and blank and his brow creased in a way that made him look completely unsure of what to do, of what he'd already done.

Sora grimaced up at him, hoping that despite his expression the vampire would have a solution. The teen was beside himself, certain that this wasn't working wonders as far as Leon's first impression of him went, and even more certain that Roxas was never going to let them forget this.

"Are you two, uh, stuck?" Demyx piped up from behind them, sounding both concerned, as if he believed they might actually be lodged in that position, and very aware of the awkward nature of the situation.

"No," Riku said suddenly. He grabbed Sora's wrist as he spun around to face them, and although Sora struggled to remain hidden safely behind the vampire, the teen was pulled even with him, sharing in the uncomfortable spotlight.

Sora's eyes went straight for the ground, hoping against all hope that he would be ignored if he ignored them, using the same childhood logic that had reassured him that no monsters could ever get him so long as he kept well hidden under the blanket.

"No, we're fine," Riku coughed nervously, finally seeming to regain some composure. "Just a little distracted. We'll be back in a bit," he said quickly, and then very speedily turned and tugged Sora with him down the hall.

The brunet clearly heard a "Wow, real smooth" as they fled the living room and squeezed his eyes shut in embarrassment. Even though Sora was bounced against the walls a couple of times and barely dodged the door as Riku slammed it shut, nothing pleased him more than that quick escape.

"Oh, goodness," he murmured, one hand over his thrumming heart. "I think I need to sit."

Riku nodded in agreement as he crossed the room and fell backward onto the bed, patting the spot next to him. Sora ambled over and sat down, his arms and legs feeling heavy and shaky, as if he'd just run a ten-mile marathon on an empty stomach.

The brunet patted and smoothed his disorderly hair to calm himself and give his restless limbs something to do. "I think this is what traumatization feels like." Sora grinned and looked over at Riku for his response.

The vampire's hand was cast over his face, covering his eyes as if in shame, but the brunet could see that he was smiling as well, and even shaking slightly from silent laughter by the looks of it. "I don't know what happened."

"Me neither, but I'm pretty sure Roxas abhors me now. And Leon must think I'm some sort of harlot."

"No," Riku protested with a groan. "Roxas will get over it. And I doubt if Leon was anything other than amused. And he _can't_ think of you as a harlot, because that refers specifically to a female prostitute. You're not a woman."

"You always know just what to say," Sora said dryly.

Riku shifted and rolled over onto his stomach, his head turned to face the Slayer, one cheek against the softness of the bed. "Are you… upset?"

"Absolutely!" He all but added a 'duh' on the end. Upon seeing Riku's subdued reaction, he hurried to add, "But not because of, y'know, _you_." He waved his hand frantically, like that somehow conveyed what words could not. "Just because of the timing. And the people there. I'm not exactly an exhibitionist, if my personality didn't already make that obvious. I would rather not have anyone watching while… while…"

There was a quiet moment as they leaned together and kissed. It would have been chaste if it had not lasted so long and silently voiced a desire for more.

"But _that's_ not a problem, right?" the vampire questioned as they parted, his head tilting slowly to the side.

"No, th-that's okay."

"Just the audience bothered you. Nothing else."

"Pretty much. Out there, it felt really… nice," he tried, glancing over at the vampire and flashing him a tentative, uncertain smile. "That's sort a bland word to describe it, I know, but I don't really know how to say."

"We'll work on creating a suitable vocabulary for you to describe the sheer rapture of our contact. Don't you worry." Riku was resting his head on his folded arms and peering at Sora from beneath wisps of silver-white hair. Sora could see that under the slight nonchalance of his words and calm, casual posture, the vampire was going wild. It was like watching a very dignified five-year-old trying to hold back a beaming grin, and it made it abundantly clear how Riku felt about all of this.

Sora wasn't as sure, wasn't as thrilled at the absoluteness of what had just happened. It was a disorienting step, going from the casual ambiguity of 'Yeah, I might sort of like him' to an undeniable 'I really want him, more than anything else'. The brunet nodded his head, slightly dizzy. He blinked, trying to clear his thoughts.

"Whoa, wait a sec-- is this your room?" he asked suddenly, his mouth opened wide. "We're in your room? You dragged us to your room?"

"Yes. Yes. Yes."

Sora sat straight up and first looked down at the bed, which looked about queen-sized and was covered by a silky smooth charcoal grey comforter and light blue sheets. The pillows looked monstrously plump and fluffy, stuffed into a pillow case that was about a size too small, and Sora was swiftly seized by the urge to grab one and squeeze it to his chest.

Riku caught him staring and plucked one of the pillows from the headboard, swinging it at the teen so that it hit him with a soft thud as he caught it.

"I'll kick your ass if you instigate a pillow fight," the Slayer warned as he slipped off of the bed and began wandering the room, pillow still clutched in his arms.

He explored the walls, which were tacked with pictures and news articles and maps in languages he couldn't even recognize, much less _read_. Photos of Riku standing on or in front of ships were common, and there was even one of him posing on what appeared to be a hand-built raft of some sort. Others showed him with Leon, and only a few included Roxas. More still were of him with other vampires-- some of which Sora recognized from drawings, like Lulu. Some of the other vampires even had hair like Riku's, pale and beautiful, and for a moment the Slayer felt as though he was actually looking at the pictures of a family related by blood-- in the human sense.

It made him smile softly.

"That's my grandsire. Grandfather. Septhiroth," Riku said from over his shoulder, gazing at the pictures along with Sora. "He made Leon."

"I've heard that name before," Sora replied with a nod. "Well, not _heard_ it, but heard _of_ it. He's in all sorts of old, old vampire books that Axel gave me."

Riku's head lifted and he took on a certain air of pride, which didn't go unnoticed by the Slayer.

"He's pretty famous. He's quieted down a lot in the last few centuries, but he was something to behold back in the day. He came as close as anyone did to single-handedly ruling over vampire affairs. Even the Palliata didn't stand up to him. He probably could have ruled it if he'd been so inclined. Sephiroth was strong-willed and independent, and could be as caring to his friends as he could be terrible to his enemies. He never let what other people said stop him from doing what he wanted to."

The vampire glanced over and saw the Slayer staring at him. "What?"

"So that's where you get it from."

"Get _what_ from?" Riku asked with a furrowed brow, genuinely looking bemused. As Sora laughed, he brushed off the comment and walked past the brunet and to another cluster of photos.

Sora followed him, grinning at the more candid pictures. One was of Leon and showed the brunet sire single-handedly carrying an armoire into a bedroom, casting a peeved glare at the camera. Another was of Riku and Demyx, each standing on either side of a costumed Mickey Mouse and giving the camera a thumbs up.

"So you were like this even back then?" the brunet asked in quiet wonder, fingering the edge of the possibly decade old photo. "When you were still trying to kill me and other people and all."

Riku looked from the Slayer to the picture, where he was smiling with one hand on Mickey's shoulder. He shrugged and shook his head, somewhat ill at ease. "Yeah. I mean, I don't really know what to say. Vampires don't generally treat the Slayer like they do family, or vice versa. It wasn't weird for me to be gunning for you and other humans while caring for my family. Think of mob bosses who shot places up and then went home to be with their kids. They were just separate parts of my life."

"Yeah… it's just odd to think about. Until recently, I never would have imagined that you could do something so normal, much less with a family member." He giggled a little bit, imagining the eager Demyx dragging him around. "Just please tell me that you didn't eat Mickey afterward. That's like killing a unicorn."

"As if I'd be able to bite through that mouse costume," the vampire said with a disgusted face. "It's worse than a turtleneck."

The Slayer paused before blurting, "What?" His brow creased. "But you love turtlenecks. You wear the same one every other day--"

"Not the same. _Different_," Riku corrected, turning to point at the open closet, where a dozen turtlenecks, mostly in the same color, were hanging. "And I do, when _I'm_ the one wearing them. There's nothing worse than going in for a bite and ending up with a mouthful of cotton. It gets snagged on your teeth surprisingly easily," he added, clearly speaking from experience.

The teen couldn't contain how humorous he found the thought and was doubled over, wiping his eyes. "S-seriously? So the great, deadly Riku can be defeated by a turtleneck? God, why wasn't I wearing one that time you bit me?" He could not stop imagining an annoyed, frustrated Riku with his mouth stuck to the fabric of some woman's sweater, struggling to free himself, wide-eyed as she beat him with a purse and reached for her pervert spray. There was something immensely gratifying about it.

"It happens to everyone, Slayer, not just me," the vampire said affrontedly. "It's not like I'm _inept_ or anything," he stressed, openly worried for his reputation.

Sora buried his head in his hands, still shaking and laughing, but slowly coming down. "I shouldn't find that so funny, people getting attacked. It's still, y'know, an attack. I'm a horrible person, laughing at that."

"You're _not_ a horrible person," Riku said to him seriously, his expression all tension and discontent. "I'm another story, but you're not. Don't even joke about things like that," he added softly, slowly giving in to a faint smile. "If you expressed the full extent of your moral outrage at everything I did and say, you would probably exhaust yourself. And a little black humor never hurt anyone. If that's how you need to respond in order to deal with me, then…"

Sora set the pillow down and turned to face the vampire, bracing himself against the desk behind him. He put his hands behind his back, clutching at the edge of the wooden plane. "I probably don't commend you enough on everything you've done so far," he said, watching affectionately as Riku's expression changed to one of guarded but pleased surprise. "On all of the drastic changes you've made."

He looked away from the Slayer, staring instead at the broad-bladed ceiling fan that made slow circles in the middle of the room as he scratched the side of his silvery head. "You don't have to. Really, Slayer."

"No, I do," the teen sighed, undeterred. "If you hadn't decided to do all of this, and to try living differently, I never would have gotten to know you like this. We could still be enemies, or worse. _You're_ the one that began breaking the cycle." He was focused on the floor as he spoke, staring vacantly at Riku's shoes while he thought of how to voice his feelings. "I don't think I've ever told you how inspiring I think that is."

"'Inspiring'?" Riku questioned, taking a step closer to the brunet.

"It's not easy, what you did. I know that. You have to struggle to do right by me and humanity. You had to overcome yourself and make your own sacrifices." Sora smiled as he saw the vampire's shoes edge closer.

"You know, Slaying becomes very dismal after a really short period of time. It's a life where all of your greatest, most influential accomplishments go almost entirely unnoticed and unappreciated." He glanced up and met Riku's eyes, letting him know that he understood what it felt like to receive little praise for outstanding feats. "Where the people you defend by night will graffiti your locker and call you names during the day. Where the one you let slip away ends up slaughtering a family of four the next night, and you have to live with that. Where you have to let some areas of your life suffer in order to succeed where it counts. It's not easy, either," he finished with a crooked smile.

"For the record," Riku breathed, cool air skimming over the Slayer's sun-kissed skin as he spoke, "I think you do a wonderful job as the Slayer."

Sora burst out laughing and playfully shoved the vampire-- although he was so solid and the push so light that it really did nothing, and his hand ended up lingering on Riku's chest. "Even though I'm pitifully trained and have gotten a helping hand in every major fight I've had?"

"Even so," the vampire whispered teasingly, putting his hands against the desk on either side of the brunet and leaning in. "Besides, your incredibly talented and patient trainer has greatly alleviated that deficiency in your training, and no one ever said that you couldn't have a partner."

"It's not cheating?" the Slayer asked teasingly.

"This is Slaying, not soccer. You can't cheat. 'All's fair in love and war', right? I mean…"

This kiss came slowly, as calm and deliberate as the last. There was a delicate brush of lips followed by a broken series of soft kisses, which gradually grew deeper and less controlled. Sora's arms clumsily wound around the vampire's neck, accidentally knocking and jostling as they tightened.

Riku could feel the heat of the brunet's body against his hips and abdomen, the pleasurable burn where the thin arms touched his neck and shoulders. His lips, especially, were so soft and so hot, like a lenient brand, gentle wherever they touched but searing nonetheless. The vampire slid his mouth to the Slayer's jaw, pressing kisses down the side of his neck, smiling when he reached his throat. He nuzzled the warmth, feeling the movement of heated blood just beneath the surface, and slowly licked and sucked on the skin there, enjoying the way the teen shuddered at the sensation but careful, always careful, not to panic him.

Riku heard a mumble and felt a hand pushing against his shoulder and reluctantly released the brunet. He stood straight up again and looked down at the boy who was still holding onto him and breathing heavily, demanding an answer for the sudden stop. Going back and forth like this was more of a drain than any battle he'd ever taken part in-- the boy would drive him to emotional exhaustion.

"Do our patrols and stuff count as dates? I mean, I could see the lunar rainbow thing maybe being a date, but it's sort of iffy because you gave me those bingo books, so it was kind of work related. I think this is the first night we've been together without anything involving slaying or training or whatnot, and I just don't want to be getting into too much too soon if we're technically on the first date or anything," he explained in one breath, his cheeks turning a shade of pink.

Silver eyebrows shot up. Sora wasn't prepared for the unrestrained 'pffffffft' that shot from the vampire's mouth, or the raucous laughter that followed. "You're worried about being _easy_?"

"What?" the Slayer grumbled defensively, a stiff pout already set in place. "I've never done this before, not even with another human, so I'm sort of new to this, thanks."

Riku was still giggling slightly as he answered. "Quality, not quantity, Slayer. The time we've spent together has been far more intense than going to the theater and mutually staring at a screen or meeting for a meal and speaking between bites. It doesn't matter if it happened to include a few decapitations or attempted assassinations along the way. It's been hours of life and death situations and intimate trust, as well as light-hearted discussion and bonding. I'd say on the patrol-to-date conversion scale, we've been going steady for four months."

"Holy cow!"

"Now you see why I've been getting restless," the vampire grinned, pulling him close again.

"And I'd thought it was just my blood," the brunet chuckled, smiling softly as his body was held against Riku's and they swayed gently back and forth. He felt cool fingers dance up his back and into his mess of spikes, threading through the roots and then gliding out to the tips, over and over. The soothing gesture prompted him to lay his head against the vampire, comfortable despite how unyielding his body was.

"I guess I just don't really feel ready, either," he murmured. "Not right now."

Riku grunted in response, never ceasing to sway or stop stroking his hair. "I figured you wouldn't," he said finally.

It was another minute before Sora decided to speak again. "Are you okay with this? Is it… too slow? I mean, I'm sorry for interrupting and not being, um, prepared. You seemed so hurried before," he mumbled into the vampire's chest. _'And so happy, and so into it, and so sure'_ were the things that he added mentally, unable to stop feeling guilty for being the brake in the relationship. "I'm sorry. I'm an amateur when it comes to this sort of thing, and you're… not."

Sora could sense, more than see, the smile that Riku was giving him. "Trust me, I'm aware of that. And it's fine for you to take some time," Riku said carefully, now running fingertips along the teen's spine, the gesture displaying some tentativeness. "So if I act like an asshole or start pushing you too fast, don't feel like you need to go along with it to make me happy. I'm confident that you're wanting me the same way I've wanted you for a while now, and eventually you'll feel comfortable with that. In the mean time, I can be patient. At least a little." He winked.

The Slayer sighed, his head resting against the plane of Riku's chest, feeling the rise and fall as the vampire hid his face in cinnamon hair and breathed deeply. Sora knew it was unnecessary for him to even bother, that he need not inhale at all, but that was also why he was so flattered-- Riku apparently liked the way he smelled enough to do so purely out of desire.

"I'm glad you stopped trying to kill me," he said bluntly, and it made the body wrapped around him shake slightly with laughter, although it trailed off distractedly.

"I agree," was the response from above his head. "And vice versa. I'm fairly certain there were a number of occasions that you could have staked or decapitated me but did not. I wasn't exactly as on guard as I should have been around you. You're very disarming." He said this with a slight hesitation and a small frown, as though still perplexed and embarrassed that he'd been swayed from his usual vigilance by anyone, much less an inexperienced Slayer.

Sora grinned to himself, proud and strangely giddy that the disarming effect hadn't only gone one way. It had always seemed like Riku was the one pacifying him, the one bewitching away _his_ defenses. It still felt that way now. But it was encouraging to know he had his own charms, apparently.

"You know," the boy said slyly, leaning back as he looked up to meet the taller man's eyes, "you never did tell me _why_ you started acting differently."

The vampire stilled, frowning lightly. "Did I never tell you that?"

"No. I asked a few times and you were just like 'Grr, no! It's complicated! Just be grateful dammit!' so I stopped asking. You never wanted to explain it."

"Yeah, because it's embarrassing," the vampire half-groaned, looking away.

Sora grabbed his hand and began bouncing in place. "Then I want to hear it even more! Please tell me. Please, please, _please_," he pleaded, still bobbing up and down on the balls of his feet excitedly. Every mystery revealed about Riku was like a portion of a ten-thousand piece jigsaw puzzle being put together, or one confounding crossword clue being answered. It made it easier to piece the _rest_ of him together.

"It's complicated. I still don't understand parts, you see," Riku explained, holding up his hands defensively.

"Stop trying to weasel out of this and tell me," Sora ordered, crossing his arms. "I want an explanation. I know you didn't just wake up one morning and suddenly like me," he said with a chuckle.

The vampire's shoulders sagged briefly and he looked to the ceiling before speaking. His opening sentence was preceded by a grimace. "Well. I had this dream about you… and me…"

And there was something about the way he said that.

Sora's mouth was hanging open as he interpreted Riku's limited admission. "So… The catalyst for your change was one of your 'special dreams', only it was a _sex dream_," he said accusatorially, his eyes narrowing as his mood dipped dramatically. He walked over to the desk and plopped himself down in the chair. "This is disappointing."

"It wasn't just about sex," Riku hissed, scandalized. The he stared at a spot on the wall, considering. "It was a part of it-- okay, a lot of it-- but not all of it. And I'll have you know it wasn't a pleasurable experience at all."

"Oh? Well, I'm glad the thought of me naked apparently disgusted you so," he said stiffly, truly a tiny bit offended.

Riku let out a sigh that was equal parts aggravation, pleading, and fatigue. "Not like that. Do you have any idea how disturbing it is to be a perfectly thriving vampire, with a normal, healthy attitude-- by our standards, at least-- and a good record for killing Slayers, and then have a dream about being _with_ one? To suddenly imagine the Slayer I'd been hunting and fought with multiple times in the past as- as a lover? I was living in my own place at the time, trying to be independent of Leon, and I ended up calling him and sobbing over the phone to him because I was so worried. I thought something was wrong with me, like a backfire of the typical sort of dreams I'd had about Slayers."

"Oh." The teen digested this slowly, still mildly displeased but also interested. He put his chin in his palm and curled his fingers up, biting the tips of his middle and index thoughtfully. "What was it like?"

"What?"

"The dream," he said shyly, shifting in his seat. "What was it like?"

Riku smiled a little too widely, hand placed lightly on his chin as he recalled. "It was sort of surreal. It kept going back to us writhing around and such, but in between there were bits of all kinds of stuff. Part of why I thought it was my dreaming on the fritz was because of how unclear it was. Typically, things are laid out very clearly and orderly in one sequence, like I'm watching it happen. Not snippets of random things back and forth, back and forth. I think both of us were wrestling naked while covered in blood at one point. That might have been my libido more than anything else, though."

Sora wrinkled his nose at the thought. "Gross. Unsanitary. _Not gonna happen_," he added venomously upon seeing the vampire's hurt pout. "I'm drawing a line in the sand right now, and it stops short of doing anything remotely intimate while covered in blood."

The Slayer could hear the vampire grumbling to himself and rolled his eyes.

"So what about the rest of it?"

"The rest of it?"

"Yeah. The little bits you saw." Sora felt his breath hitch, but he didn't know why. Riku was staring at him, but he did that often. One look shouldn't have felt so different, so strong.

The vampire was in front of him in a second, taking small, sun-kissed hands into his own and pulling the boy to his feet. Rather than letting him go, Riku lifted Sora's hands to his face, putting them against the planes of his cheeks and holding them there.

"I remember you doing this," he whispered, maneuvering Sora's hands and fingers, making them run up his smooth, cool skin and into his hair, then slowly down to the back of his neck.

Riku tried to repress a shudder, although he felt certain that the brunet had noticed it. The Sora in his dreams was never even comparable to this one. The heat in a dream was only imagined, approximate-- Sora's real touch was smoldering and lingering, like warm, flaking embers being trailed over his skin. His cautious excitement that seemed contagious and his hesitant, shaky breath were impossible to imitate precisely, as was his smile.

He dragged the brunet's hands down from his nape and toward the center of his chest. The residual heat left by Sora's fingers as they ran over his flesh left a heated trail in the shape of an oval on his skin, one that stretched over his shoulders and around his neck and down to the center of his chest, just to the side of heart. Riku felt branded, knighted by the touch.

"I did that?" Sora questioned with a tremulous laugh soon after.

Riku nodded. "The rest of the fleeting parts weren't nearly as exciting, but they were nice. I was sleeping by you, and we were reading together. We were gardening out under the sun once. And that was when I first suspected that this dream had a healthy dose of fantasy in it," he chuckled. "But then, I did see you pouring water on my head in a bath, and _that_ happened," he mused as he took the brunet's hand. "So perhaps there is hope for the blood-wrestling yet."

"Ugh, no. Stop mentioning that," Sora groaned softly, rolling his eyes. He quietly inhaled and bit his lip lightly as his left hand was raised and cool lips pressed against the pads of his fingers. He didn't realize he was holding his breath until he went to speak. "Do I feel as hot to you as you feel cold to me?" he asked, remembering the way Riku's eyes had fluttered when he'd touched the back of his neck.

"I think so. Am I unpleasantly cold? If I go eat something I'll be warmer for a while," Riku said quickly, suddenly very aware and self-conscious of his temperature.

"No, it's not a problem right now," the teen said with a dismissive wave. "In fact, it'll probably be really nice during the summer. You do stay cold when it's hot, right?"

"We're always a little bit cooler than the temperature around us, but we're affected by it to an extent. I don't think I've ever gotten above seventy, even in the summer."

Sora grunted softly at that, looking puzzled but fascinated. He hummed to himself for a moment, strumming his fingers steadily. "So, with other Slayers, you have dreams about how they die. How to kill them. And then, with me… it's…"

Riku sensed blood rushing to his face, felt his cheeks and ears tinge a very pale pink. It was an unusual experience for him. "It was shocking, but… it didn't feel nearly as off-putting as it should have, which is what alarmed me the most. It _did_ get the point across, even if I was still mildly agitated and bewildered."

"This would explain why you refrained from trying to kill me but were still a creepy, threatening jerk when you came back, huh?"

"Hey, I was trying," Riku said defensively. "_You_ try suddenly feeling intrigued by, attached to and strangely aroused at the thought of your biggest enemy and tell me how well you adjust to it. I at least wanted to make pretend that I still had a little of my old dignity left."

"By harassing me as soon as you saw me? And bringing up the two previous times that you'd nearly killed me? Saying 'third time's the charm'? Excuses, excuses," he said with a taunting smile.

Riku pursed his lips sourly and looked away. "In my defense, the next time I did a lot better. A few lapses, but it went fairly well," he said with a proud nod. "I even tried to get you to take some of that jewelry stuff to fix up your rinky-dink house-- which I like a lot, don't get me wrong," he added immediately, hoping to stave off any anger from the Slayer. "I am honored to be invited there. But when you have a crack rivaling the Grand Canyon on your living room wall and a roof like Swiss cheese, you might as well do a little grave robbing. You need it more."

Sora huffed. "Thanks, but I'll refrain."

"If you're so uptight about it, then at least let me and Leon pay for some of it. You shouldn't have to rig a pulley system just to get your toilet to flush. We'll buy you a new one. And a new fridge. The one you have is sort of…"

"Decrepit?" Sora offered.

"Yes. I was going for 'rancid', but that works as well."

"Apparently the people living there before me left without notice, without taking anything, and when the power bill didn't get paid, they shut it off. The food in the fridge sat there for weeks. The plastic absorbed the smell, I think. Or perhaps the smell literally burned its way into it. It's got that tang to it."

Riku nodded, his eyes fluttering shut as he recalled the putrid, sour smell that had driven him from the kitchen during his stay with the Slayer after the Naga Incident (capitalized, as per Sora's naming of the ordeal). "A new one. For sure."

Sora couldn't contain his grin. The other things he would argue-- the roof leaked, but he had invested in plenty of buckets; the toilet was a problem, but his physical science chapter on simple machines had made it manageable; the cracks wouldn't bring the house down any time soon-- but the new refrigerator was something he would not debate.

He tried his best to look abashed when the vampire caught him beaming at the prospect of a fridge that _didn't_ infuse its contents with acrid smells-- and with someone else footing the bill, much less-- but couldn't do it very successfully. Riku didn't seem to mind, though, and smiled along with him.

* * *

After copious amounts of coaxing from the silver-haired vampire, Sora had consented to leaving the safety of the bedroom.

Though it was obviously the last thing he wanted to do, Sora had to admit that Riku was right in saying that it couldn't be put off forever, and that it was best to do it quickly. The silver-haired man had likened it to a splinter being pulled-- better done quick and almost painlessly than to let it sit and grow worse, all the while cautious and anxious of it, letting it affect you longer than it should.

Sora likened it more to a tooth being pulled. He glumly followed Riku down the hall and into the living room. He immediately darted his eyes to the floor, then up the walls, trying to look only where it was unlikely he would meet anyone's gaze. The teen was shocked to see the clock and realize that it was only barely midnight, but more shocked to finally tear his eyes away from it and find that no one was staring at him.

Instead, all four of the others were fixated on the TV, with Axel and Demyx holding controllers in their hands and madly pressing buttons while Leon watched somewhat distractedly and Roxas hovered over Axel's shoulder, barking orders and cheering him on every time he passed Demyx.

It was undeniable that they knew of the two standing just short of the hall-- not even the distraction of a blaring racing game could keep three vampires and a werewolf from noticing their presence. But it seemed that they were mercifully trying not to make a scene.

Sora sighed appreciatively. He caught Riku rolling his eyes and shrugged. "No grilling? No interrogation under a hot spotlight? No inquisition ending with my being chased out of the town by two angry vampires?"

"Is _that_ what you were expecting?" he asked amusedly. "I thought you were worried about them making fun."

"That too." The teen grabbed his elbow and edged around the sofa, where Leon and Roxas both sat, and settled onto the floor beside Axel, who was sitting on the floor directly in front of the blonde. Riku perched on the arm of the couch next to Roxas, and Sora leaned back against the piece of furniture, each of the vampire's legs resting on either side of him.

"Why do you have so many controllers?" the teen asked quizzically as he spotted the cardboard box next to the entertainment center that was piled high with controllers for various game systems. "You can only play at once with, like, four people max."

"They're for when we get, uh, excited," Demyx answered sheepishly from the other side of Axel, his eyes glued to the screen as he leaned into a turn. "Sometimes, when you're in the heat of the moment, and you're button-mashing really hard, it just sort of…"

"CRUNCH," Riku supplied, smiling as he lifted his hands and tightened them into fists. "Mere plastic is no match for us. But I mean that in a bad way. You're frantically trying to pull out a win, and then your character suddenly stops fighting, and you look down and see wires and cracked plastic, and then you lose. It's very inconvenient."

"Things aren't made for our sort of strength," Roxas said with a shrug, happy to complain along. "I imagine it's hard for Slayers and werewolves as well. Sometimes you just forget."

Leon chipped in, starting out with, "In the last three weeks, we've gone through…"

"Four microwaves, six kitchen drawers," Demyx said thoughtfully, his blue eyes occasionally rolling up toward the ceiling as he mentally reviewed the numbers. "One keyboard, a dozen glasses--"

"Two remotes, that faucet in the bathroom in the hall," Riku continued, his mouth thinned in concentration, "a chair, two iPods, at least nine spoons, that vending machine outside of Circuit City that Demyx tried to use--"

"Why were you trying to use a vending machine?" Roxas asked exasperatedly before adding to the list. "The handle on the refrigerator, sevendoorknobs and _one door_," he said with particular venom.

"You said to jiggle it," Riku protested.

"And you left a plate-sized hole in my door-- 'jiggle' doesn't mean 'violently shake to the point that you splinter the wood surrounding it', obviously."

Sora's eyes darted to the left as Leon suddenly rose from the couch and quickly and purposefully strode straight down the darkened hallway, as though he'd been summoned there.

"Leon needs to stop babying him. He's a grown human, after all," Roxas whispered to no one in particular, although he met eyes with Riku, who gave a half-hearted shrug.

"He's just happy to have someone he likes actually like him back. Cut him a tiny bit of slack," the younger vampire replied. "Not to mention, he's got to do maximum damage control after all of that--"

"What are you guys talking about?" Sora interrupted, sitting up on his knees so he'd be a little bit higher, a little more able to look back and forth between Riku and Roxas.

Riku spoke in a whisper, glancing down the hall to make sure his sire wouldn't hear. "Leon and his love interest, who unfortunately had a run in with a particularly nasty demon and learned very suddenly about vampires and all other manner of creatures existing. He's been staying here in the nights and evenings when he can. I think-- oh, they're coming."

Sora stretched higher, craning his neck to see over the furniture and down the hall. He couldn't have hidden his shock even if he'd been so inclined-- the person that walked out was close to the last he would have expected to see.

Cobalt eyes nearly doubled in size as his English teacher came down the hallway, wearing what looked suspiciously like some of Leon's spare clothing. His jaw went slack.

"M-Mr. Strife?" he asked in a panic, worrying over how to explain this meeting to the man, wondering how he had wandered into a vampire nest and survived, how he'd been pulled into this part of Sora's world. It took several seconds for the brunet to make the connection of 'my teacher' to 'Leon's love interest'. It was something hard to comprehend, and the teen repeatedly found himself thinking that it was a mistake, and the real 'love interest' that Riku had mentioned was still back in another room, while Mr. Strife was just… here. Inexplicably.

Cloud's reaction upon reaching the living area was almost identical to Sora's. "Sora?"

Leon's change in expression conveyed only the tiniest bit of interest in this situation, but Sora was already starting to realize that for the aged vampire, a slight reaction was equivalent to a normal person's regular reaction. "You know him?" he asked in subdued surprise.

"He's my teacher," Sora said numbly.

Riku blinked in surprise and nudged the short brunet. "Hey, what are the chances?"

"This is the one I told you about, the Chosen One that slays vampires and demons and the like," Leon told Cloud helpfully, trying to explain why Sora was there, the teen surmised. "He is quite open to some of us, though."

Cloud grinned, looking as though he was almost about to start laughing. "I almost thought you were talking about Sora at first. You mean the redhead?"

"Not me," Axel snorted, his eyebrows raised in amusement. "This one," he said, pointing to the teen next to him.

The blonde's expression died to one of concern and hopeful denial. "What? Sora, you're not- you haven't been--"

"Um, I am." He fidgeted under the increasingly intense gaze of the blonde teacher. No matter how hard he tried, Sora couldn't help but feel like he was back in school-- the Hellhole where he couldn't solve problems with a sword and was subject to rules and expectations that seemed laughable and trivial in comparison to what he faced on a nightly basis-- and was in trouble for writing on a desk or running in the halls.

Cloud's expression softened, though it lost none of the concern. "But Leon t-told me about Slayers, and…" He shook his head, at a loss for words, and then smiled in a sad way. "That would explain why you were never conscious for more than five minutes of my class."

"Heh, sorry." Sora flushed red with embarrassment and lowered his head.

The blonde was quick to correct the boy. "Oh, no, I didn't mean- there should be some kind of exemption system for kids chosen to protect the world from the forces of evil and darkness. Less homework and more allowed unexcused absences." He gave an awkward sort of grimace. "No offense about the 'evil and darkness' thing," he said quickly to the vampires.

"None taken!" Demyx said cheerfully.

"There are times that I do wish I could tell people. At least in school," Sora admitted. "Maybe those dicks in the back of chemistry would stop making fun of me if they knew I could snap their arms like glow sticks."

Axel congratulated him on the visual imagery with a wink.

Cloud was taken aback by the thought. He was having a hard time coming to terms with Sora-- cheerful, lonely, polite, ever hungry, ever tired, ever picked-on _Sora_-- being something akin to a superhero. He was a warrior straight out of legend, superhuman, and he'd been sleeping in the back of his class all this time. Suddenly, Cloud felt that his concerned behavior for the boy's well-being-- his out of class tutoring, his offers of providing a listening ear, his sharing of Subway sandwiches and chips and cold pizza for lunch-- was so pathetic and miniscule and completely _off_ that it was shameful.

"I'm sorry that I never realized what all you were dealing with," he said quietly, too upset at his poor attempts at helping his student to meet his eyes. "I _thought_ I understood you. You must have been disappointed."

"No, this is- no, it's totally fine. It's not like you see a kid missing class and falling asleep and getting harassed and think, 'Hey, he must be some sort of chosen protector for humankind', right? It was great to have someone that treated me normally, that helped me in regular ways. I know your vouching for me kept me from getting suspended a couple of times," he said with a fond smile.

"You have no idea," the blonde said through a tense smile. "At least now I know why you never had a bruise or scratch on you when I was trying to convince Mr. Lazard that you were always the victim and tried not to fight back."

The teen blushed, feeling guilty for his teacher's trouble. "So… do you mind if I ask how _you_ got here? In with Leon and all…" Sora explained cautiously, nervously pressing the tips of his fingers together. "I just feel like I should have noticed. I mean, I'm glad it was Leon and not some freak, but I still feel sort of responsible for totally letting this slip by, just in case it hadn't been, y'know, Leon."

"Oh, don't. The internet. It comes with all sorts of risks, and it's not your job to monitor it. I don't expect you to know every detail of my life and run yourself ragged trying to protect me specially, and you shouldn't either. You might be chosen by destiny as a protector of humanity, but you're still a kid," he said with a smile. "And I don't mean that condescendingly."

"Well… cool. I guess I don't have to worry anymore with Leon looking after you," the brunet teen said with a beaming smile and a happy nod.

"No, Leon does enough worrying on his own. He doesn't need any help at all."

The dark haired vampire shifted his weight to the other leg in response. Strangely, all of Leon's purposeful gestures seemed to convey enough to count as responses.

"He's still upset about the routes I would take home after late days," Cloud explained, walking the teen over to the island that separated the kitchen from the living room and taking a stool. "I always had pepper spray with me, and I know enough to defend myself from anyone who would try to mug me, so I never thought much of it until recently. Now I look back on all those times you were so insistent about me getting home before dark… I'd thought that you were concerned for me working too long."

Sora watched as the spiky blonde accepted a beer from Leon, the vapor still curling and floating out of the tall bottle, mumbling thanks before taking a sip. The Slayer was surprised to see the vampire smile in return as he dropped the lid into the garbage and then resumed his place on the couch.

"S'not your fault," Sora sighed. "What you don't know can kill you, but there's really no way to go about convincing masses of people that they're in danger from so-called fictional monsters and stuff without them calling you crazy or totally freaking out. You just behaved normally."

Cloud nodded and silently took another drink.

"And honestly, I'm still more wowed that you and Leon…" He trailed off, cheeks brightening in embarrassed shame. Regardless of the situation, this was still his teacher, and a much older adult as well, and his romantic life was not any of his business at all. It felt weird to be associating with him in such a way, but Sora couldn't help being intrigued by seeing a couple that he was able to relate to himself and Riku.

"Well, I wasn't aware of his currently undead condition when we first met, or for some weeks after." The blonde shrugged and glanced over at the senior vampire, and a look passed between them that Sora couldn't miss. "It's… a difficult adjustment. But things are working out, and honestly, it makes a lot more sense this way. I was _this_ close to calling a doctor to ask about how poor a person's circulation can be before they drop dead," he whispered.

Sora giggled, familiar with this concern. "Sometimes I jump when Riku touches me because it's so cold. But a lot of the time, it isn't so bad. I'm not sure if I'm getting used to it, or if he's secretly warming up with heating pads beforehand, or what."

His teacher shook his head and smiled at his, his bright blue eyes closing shut as he did. "It's--"

There was a sharp, loud knock-- almost booming, as though there were some sort of thunder-like reverberations following-- at the door, making both Cloud and Sora flinch in their seats. Demyx immediately darted over and pulled the door open, only to find the doorway empty. He stuck his head out and glanced around, then turned back and shrugged.

There was a sudden flash of light that filled the room, along with _wooshing _air that blew around the room in circle, creating something like the inside of a tornado. Loose papers, napkins, and tiny objects were picked up and carried through the air; Cloud and Sora ducked behind the counter, while the vampires and the werewolf shielded their eyes with their hands and tried to keep their hair and clothing from whipping around too much.

Then, quite suddenly, the wind and light subsided, leaving just an eleven-foot-or-so tall, four-horned demon standing in the midst of the couches and chairs in the living room, atop the crushed remains of the coffee table.

Only Sora and Cloud, who were both peeking over the countertop, and Axel, who had stumbled around with his eyes covered and wound up near them, seemed alarmed by this.

"Thank you for knocking before teleporting into the living room. You wouldn't believe how many demon-lords just pop right into private homes like they own the place." Three sets of shocked eyes turned to Roxas, who had been utterly calm as he spoke to the gnarled, bearded demon.

"My deepest apologies about the table," the demon rumbled, looking down at the splinters and broken pane of glass before picking up the hem of his long brown and red robes and stepping to the side.

"It's not the first we've lost," Leon quietly grumbled, his arms crossed.

"Won't be the last," Riku added with an amiable shrug.

"I think some of us are not nearly as prepared to deal with this as others are," Sora said shakily, bracing himself against the kitchen island and standing.

"Ah, the current Slayer," the tall, wrinkled demon said with a smile, outstretching a long arm and gesturing to the teen. "I don't believe I've had the pleasure of meeting you yet. I'm Halafernes, King of the Vengeance Demons and acting president of the Revenge Council and The Board of Ironic Deaths. Call me Hal. I hope the earlier incident with one of my… former employees will not tarnish your opinion of me, or the rest of my organization."

"Is that what you're here about?" Riku asked while crossing his arms a little stiffly. "I was planning on lodging a formal complaint through Cerberus--"

"Yes, yes, I can't blame you," Hal said with a sigh, his green-tinged, ring-clad hands opening in a gesture of exasperated hopelessness. "I came to apologize in person as soon as I became aware of the situation."

"Do you often experience such problems? The vengeance demons have had a strong reputation as far back as I can remember," Leon interjected, his steel eyes searching the demon king.

"You must be one of Sephiroth's! Such a remarkable young vampire. His blood runs strong in his line. We met briefly during the Palliata's fiasco in Rome-- such a scandal that was. You must pass along my regards. And yes, the reputation of my department is very good and very well-deserved," Hal said with a nod. "But this was performance review week. It's a stressful time for everyone, but I can assure you that I've _never_ had an employee go AWOL like this. It is a shock to all of us. The quiet ones, you know."

Sora grimaced as he thought back to the night. He felt the somewhat familiar twinge in his stomach and the raising of hairs on his arms and neck that signaled someone watching him intently. He glanced up and met the demon's yellow-eyed gaze. "She killed so many people," he murmured, not sure of what to say, really, but still angry and upset enough about the night to feel the need to say _something_.

"Terribly sorry," the gnarled demon said with a nod, clasping his hands and bowing his head. "It isn't their nature to kill indiscriminately. As much as I care for my vengeance demons, stopping her was for the best. I am sorry that it happened, and equally sorry that you had to become involved, but I am thankful for your aid."

"What did she specialize in?" Sora heard Riku ask from his right. The teen was still staring at the demon, although the action was empty and unfocused.

"Vengeance on behalf of neglected children," Hal answered with a smile. "And boy, was she creative. Ironic, too. Very witty. I believe the Board made a motivational poster out of one of her early assignments. It was, perhaps, in the summer of fifteen-fourteen? Ah, or maybe earlier, now that I think on it," he muttered mostly to himself, stroking his long, gray-white beard and staring into space as he reminisced.

Sora was reminded of an old grandfather lost in memories, and he wondered how old Halafernes was-- 'positively ancient' was the answer suggested by his slightly hunched back, wrinkled and spotted skin, and long, wispy beard and eyebrows. "This isn't going to happen again, is it? You won't let it, will you?"

The demon turned to him suddenly, attentively. "Not if we can help it. We are already conducting psych evaluations and investing in a few new recreational activities designed to give an outlet for frustrated, stressed employees. Other departments are reevaluating as well. We hope to prevent this sort of thing from happening again, but in case it should, we will keep two turok-han on staff."

Sora noted the shudder that ran through all four of the vampires and Axel as well. "Turok-han?"

Halafernes smiled, looking a bit surprised. "You should know these things, dear Slayer. But alas, I cannot explain. I must leave if I wish to make it to my meeting before Buer gets impatient and starts passing out questionable herbs. Thank you for your hospitality," he said with a courteous bow to Leon, which the vampire returned with a very slight smile and a similar bow of his own. "You may send the bill for a new table to me through Cerberus and I will reimburse you. And do not be cheap in purchasing a new one. Only the highest quality for vampires of such a noble lineage, yes?"

A chorus of goodbyes accompanied the swirling air and bright light this time, and then once again the living room was empty. The pile of what was once a coffee table sat sadly in the middle of the floor.

"And one coffee table," Leon muttered to himself with a sigh. He knelt and began lifting pieces while Roxas went in search of a box and the other two vampires bent down to help. Cloud was already at work picking up scattered papers and righting the knocked over lamps.

Sora moved to go help, but felt a hand on his elbow, gently stopping him. The next thing he felt was hot breath on the side of his neck. "Sora," Axel whispered desperately. "Please teach Roxas how to cook."

"Roxas doesn't want any sort of contact with me, much less in any form of activity that suggests I'm better at something than he is."

"No, no, no," the redhead murmured urgently, shaking his spiky head and spinning the teen around to face him. "He will if you tell him that you want to show him the recipes I like. God, Sora, _please_. He wants to make all of my meals for me. All of them. He refuses to let me cook for myself whenever he's there. He wants to buy all of the food-- he threw out everything I had in the fridge and restocked it with canned peaches because he watched a show about the health benefits of peaches. They weren't even the fresh kind! And then it was cabbage. Do you know what he thought the potato peeler was for? _Do you know_? And if the landlord sees the scorch marks on the wall behind the stove--"

"Okay, okay!" The Slayer groaned and covered his face. "I'll do my best."

The werewolf pulled Sora into a hug that threatened to bruise. "Thank you! See, I never anticipated this sort of problem. Roxas has no reason whatsoever to be interested in food. But it's like he's eating vicariously through me. He finds a recipe he thinks sounds good, makes it, and wants me to eat it. It's cute, but it's not good for my tongue or internal organs. He thought the oven was a cabinet for storing pans," the redhead blurted out, unable to contain the kitchen horrors he'd seen any longer.

"Alright, calm down," Sora said soothingly as he patted his friend's back. "I'll see what I can do."

**

* * *

**

**I'm the sort of person that hates seeing things end so this is getting drawn out to hell but I'm guesstimating this finishing at 15-17 chapters total, just so you have an idea. ****And Buffy fans can probably guess that Halafernes is basically a nicer, less sadistic D'Hoffryn. I always liked the bureaucratic, office-like atmosphere of the vengeance demons. =D**

**So probably not one of the most interesting chapters, but I still reeeaaally hope you'll review! The next chapter will have all kinds of Slayer-on-vampire cooking teaching action in it.**


	12. Caldera

**Happy New Year to all of you! I hope this is a good start to it.**

"_Then thinking of the sweet good I leave,_

_of the long road, and of my brief life,_

_I halt my steps, dismayed and pale,_

_and lower my eyes weeping to the ground."_

_---Petrarch, Canzoniere poem 15_

* * *

"You seem tired. Stressed. Unhappy."

Riku's head lolled back and he rolled his eyes, immediately regretting doing so. The filth clinging to the ceiling of the underground tunnel was somehow even worse than the thick grime coating the walls. He tried not to ponder too deeply how so much shit and gunk had been deposited so high. "No, of course not. It's not like I'm up five hours before usual, trudging though dank sewers with a werewolf. What's there not to smile about? Come on, let's hold hands and skip the rest of the way. Watch out for the rats, though-- that last one looked more like a capybara."

"Geez, I was just making an observation," Axel huffed, sneering over at the vampire as he shuffled along beside him, the sounds of the dark water sloshing around their ankles echoing underneath his words. He wrinkled his nose as he saw a bit of dust from the sewer vampires they'd just staked sticking to the fabric on his arm and swiped it off. "I enjoy this nearly as much as you do, believe me."

"At least you have a reason to be doing this."

The redhead frowned deeply. It _was_ a compromise that benefited him greatly, and Riku _was_ just sort of going along with it because Sora asked. "I know. But really, Sora needed a break anyway."

"You think teaching-- no, let me correct myself-- _attempting_ to teach Roxas how to cook is a 'break'?" Riku paused for a moment before tipping his head back and laughing. "You've spent more than ten minutes with that guy, right?"

Axel scoffed the vampire's words off. "Sora loves to cook. He doesn't usually have the time with slaying and school and all. Even with Roxas-- and I know how difficult he can be first-hand, you can't deny it," he added quickly at Riku's glare, "he'll enjoy it and relax a little bit. He has an excuse to set aside a whole night for it, and now he doesn't have to feel guilty about no patrolling getting done. We'll take care of the dirty work together, and then you do a little more dusting once the sun sets while I go back to open the bar. It works out!"

They came to a fork in the tunnel, where the sewer branched off to the right and off to the left, each way dimly lit by the hazy, flickering yellow lights embedded in the concrete ceiling. They both peered at the map, saw that the two paths would eventually meet up again, and wordlessly split up.

Axel took the right. It wasn't long before he could no longer listen for Riku splashing through his adjacent tunnel, and the gentle gurgling and dripping of water and his own wet steps were all to be heard. He scanned with the flashlight in his left hand and kept a tight grip on the monk's spade in the other. The redhead had cut off the end of the pole with the crescent shaped blade and sharpened the wood into a point, leaving him a long-handled weapon with a spade-like blade on one end and a stake on the other. He had fashioned a similar one for Riku, who had accepted and praised it readily, which was a pleasant surprise for the werewolf.

Even prior to knowing the Slayer, Axel had been quite familiar with the sort of undead and nonliving creatures who could not be enticed or dissuaded by any sort of discount or drink he could offer, and had long ago learned basic ways to defend himself against such monsters. What he hadn't had in strength or speed he'd made up with in knowledge and improvisation.

As he made another pass with the flashlight, he noticed tiny points of reflection coming from an alcove far ahead into the darkness, where the lights had gone out entirely. He kept the beam focused there for a moment as he determined the cause, let out a long, tired groan, and then began yelling.

"Hey! Dead brains! Moldy butts! Come and get it, you dead-behind-the-eyes rejects!"

Almost immediately he heard moans. The gut-wrenching noise bounced around the grey-walled tunnels, never ending. The werewolf was pleased to note that the sound did not affect him as strongly as it used to, when he was just human-- only shades of nausea and panic now, rather than all-encompassing sickness and fear. He stayed in place as he heard splashes and groans moving slowly his way, focusing entirely on preparing the weapon in his right hand and keeping a steady aim with the flashlight in his left. He rested the pole horizontally on his shoulder, keeping it even at the average person's head level and aiming the blade forward.

A group of no more than six zombies approached at a stagger. All but two were highly decomposed, rotten to the point that they looked less like human corpses and more like shifting masses of bones and hanging flesh. The two in the lead were obviously fresher, with their navy jumpsuits still intact enough to identify them as city sewer inspectors.

The group's putrid odor was enough to make Axel's eyes flutter shut and his gag reflex kick in. He resolved to breathe through his mouth until they got close, and then hopefully hold his breath throughout the encounter. The tiny, enclosed space left nowhere for the stench to go, making it oppressively strong around him.

As the zombie in the forefront came within striking distance-- its one remaining arm stretched toward him and its mouth gaping, the open, rotting hole continuing down the side of its neck and exposing the bone underneath-- the redhead thrust the weapon forward sharply, breaking through the nose area and into the skull. He spun the shaft quickly and then withdrew, watching the decaying body crumple.

He took a few steps back and waited for the next shuffling zombie to approach so he could repeat the process, always careful to keep enough distance to avoid being grabbed, much less bitten. It was a process where he could carefully eliminate the zombies one by one, minimizing the risk of a bite or a fluid splatter.

When all of the zombies were dispatched, he carefully paced forward, stopping at each corpse to make sure the skull was completely crushed and the brain no longer capable of functioning. He was always wary, always kept his feet a few paces from the bodies while he leaned over and split their heads. Too many close calls during previous zombie encounters had taught him that necessity.

The werewolf made a contorted, disgusted face as he continued past the slain zombies, still peering down the tunnel and into the tiny niches and alcoves along the way. It was another twenty minutes of fruitless searching before he saw the tunnel he was opening into a large room, a cavernous space in comparison to the tight tunnels, and a glowingly pale vampire waiting impatiently at the entrance.

"I never thought I'd be so glad to see you!" Axel yelled in a slightly snarky tone, but his relieved smile was genuine. "Any problems?" he asked once he was closer and they began moving down the larger sewer side-by-side.

"No. Just one vampire on his own, and then a group of them that had made their den in a recess. That's all. The way they lived… it was horrible," he said with a shake of his head. "Disgusting. But at least most of them were asleep. Anyway, _you_ certainly took your sweet time."

"I had zombies to deal with. And unlike _you_, nonliving guy, I had to worry about them biting me or getting their juices on me. I can't be wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am with zombies like you can," he said with a few emphatic gestures.

"Yes. Being alive is quite the hassle," Riku agreed blithely.

The redhead sighed. "Yeah, well. Here's the ladder we need to get out, and there are only eight minutes left until sundown." Axel leaned against the grimy, rusted metal that led to the surface and then looked expectantly at Riku, pointedly flashing the vampire in the eyes with his light.

He cursed, his pupils immediately shrinking to tiny dots, and covered his face. "Damn werewolf," he growled lowly. "Why do you even need that bloody thing--"

"Because my eyes aren't as good as yours in the dark. Not when I'm in human form. They're about the same as Sora's. Better than even the best humans', but still not up to your level."

Riku groaned and pinched the bridge on his nose, already fighting a headache from the bright light. "Shine that thing directly at me again and I swear I'll pull off your fingernails."

Axel chuckled.

Riku paused, acutely missing the days when he wasn't trifled with like this, and then continued with, "Scratch that. I'll just tell Roxas how much you've always wanted to try beet soup with tripe and let him put that together for you."

The redhead made a displeased noise and pressed his lips together tightly.

"Why couldn't we have just done this at night?" the vampire mumbled, feeling all of the ways that the lack of sleep was slowing him down, making him weaker. "Oh, that's right. Because the self-employed bartender can't set his own hours."

"Hey, I do," Axel said in affronted tones. "But I took last night off to go… do things with Roxas, and leaving that place closed for two nights in a row is just asking for trouble." He looked down at his watch impatiently. "Which is why I need to leave as soon as possible, so I can scrub this shit off before the too-sober crowd gets ugly. Uglier," he amended as he thought of the various horned, bristled, and bump covered demons that enjoyed pool and fruity drinks. He glanced down at his feet, which were concealed under several inches of water. Despite the rubber rainboots, he could feel that some of the polluted liquid had gotten in around his feet. It felt like it was almost stinging, burning.

"I got it in mine, too," Riku commented from the side, equally uncomfortable about it, if mostly for sanitary reasons. "Almost acidic."

"Yeah, it-- oh, fuck," he sighed as he looked up and past the silver-haired vampire, down another tunnel, opposite from the two they had emerged from, where nearly a dozen more zombies were amassed, all with their eyes (or what remained of them) on one person. It took longer for the stench to make itself known in this larger space, but it was soon there in full force, and even Riku felt his knees buckle a little from it.

"Watch out for the one dragging behind," Riku warned the redhead, pointing out one zombie that was no higher than knee level, crawling on stumps. It was so low that it could be overlooked until it was too close, too late. "I'll take care of that one first."

Axel watched the vampire dart across his path and round the other side, striking down the slowly dragging zombie. The redhead ran forward and then moved sideways, trying to flank the closely packed group. It was to no avail, as they moved to face him as a unit, concentrated only on him. It was as if he was all they knew, all they could fully sense. His heat and smell and life were like the beacon of a lighthouse in pitch black conditions.

It was all Axel could do to keep them out of biting distance, especially with the few in the forefront that pursued him with a desperate and frightening haste, their moans louder and more bone-chilling than their brethren. There was no way to single out one or two at a time, or attack one without risking a lunge from another. Emerald eyes quickly found and met Riku's, hoping that the vampire would understand and take the lead.

Riku smiled and inclined his head slightly toward the bartender. As Axel paced backward, his attention always focused on maintaining a steady distance from the zombies leading the group, Riku followed behind, picking off the slowest creatures and gradually catching up with the redhead, who was by now moving in a large oval shape within the chamber.

The vampire dispatched each zombie with one violent blow to the back of the head and an extra chop at the skull of the corpse for insurance. The last zombie left to kill, the one that had followed Axel more hungrily and speedily than all of the others, was particularly ferocious. The way its teeth clicked together over the moaning was particularly unnerving to Axel.

He had chopped off one of its arms at the shoulder when it became too grabby and then had attempted a few strikes to the head, but none connected enough to incapacitate or kill. It seemed like the soft, rotten flesh on its face never allowed the blade to really stick, never let it cause anything more than a scratch into the hard bone underneath.

Axel heaved a huge sigh of relief and thanks when Riku was finally able to make a successful crack in the back of the cranium and then slice into the brain. With the center of control destroyed, the corpse finally ceased to move and fell with a sick splash onto the ground.

The werewolf stood his spade straight up next to him, the chipped blade against the ground, and leaned heavily against it. He wiped the sweat off of his brow and sighed again, grateful for the ordeal to be over.

"None of them touched you? You're certain?"

Axel grinned and sauntered back over to the ladder, impatient to get back to the surface. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you sound pretty concerned," the redhead teased, his short scarlet eyebrows raised in curious satisfaction.

"Well, if there was any possibility of contamination or infection, I might have to kill you. And as pleasing as I would personally find that," he said nonchalantly, "I wouldn't enjoy breaking the news to my brother or the Slayer. Or the following that you've swayed to your side with alcohol," he mumbled as he followed the larger man up the ladder and through the manhole that opened to a thankfully deserted street.

"Well, that's fairly reassuring," Axel said amiably. "I, too, would not look forward to informing your brother or the Slayer of your death, even if it was a necessary killing. I guess we've found a common ground."

The vampire grunted in hesitant agreement, his eyes adjusting to the bright streetlight directly overhead. "I suppose so."

* * *

"The inside looks even worse than the outside," Roxas said in wonder as he was invited into the Slayer's house. "Impressive."

Sora bit his lip to keep from speaking back and mentally repeated his mantra of 'It's for Axel, it's for Axel' to keep his hands from finding their way to the vampire's throat. Nevertheless, the teen couldn't stop a few thoughts like, _'We're the same size and build… he wouldn't be so hard to take down' _and _'Couldn't Axel have found a less abrasive vampire to date?'_ from slipping in.

"I suppose someone as busy as the Slayer just doesn't have the time to maintain a cleanly environment," the blonde said smoothly as he ran a hand over a small writing desk in the living room. His thin golden eyebrows rose as he examined the dust coating his fingertip. He 'hmmphed' and then wiped it off against the stark white apron in his hands.

"Since when do vampires care about things getting dusty? Except for themselves, of course," he added with a tiny hint of malice, smiling innocently in contrast. For once, Sora was quite glad that he never had the time or energy to put everything back where it belonged-- maybe the numerous stakes lying around would be enough to make the vampire keep his comments to himself.

"Look," Roxas said curtly, his expression pure loathing, "I don't want to be around you any more than you want to be around me. I don't want to be in your little peasant house, either. But I'm willing to do it for the sake of Axel, and I'm willing to be the bigger person and not slit your throat for the sake of Riku. So let's buckle down and get this over with."

Sora grumbled an almost inaudible response, agreeing with the sentiment but still personally insulted. "Whatever. Come on. The sooner we start, the sooner we finish."

The brunet led Roxas through the living room and into the kitchen, looking over his shoulder at him all the while. He was almost certain that the vampire wouldn't actually try anything, since he was under pressure from both his brother and Axel to behave as well as being slightly afraid of fighting the Slayer anyway, but there was always that inkling of doubt. Roxas certainly didn't try to convince Sora otherwise, either.

In a way-- although Riku had given his blessing on the situation, along with threatening Roxas with all manner of butcherings not to embarrass him or bother Sora-- the teen felt as though he was betraying Riku by inviting another vampire into his house so easily. Riku, who had looked inside longingly and waited, and had been so awed and flattered to be allowed inside, was now sharing the same status (as far as Sora's house was concerned) as someone who had hastily been given the same invitation and treated it as a chore rather than an honor.

It felt like a tiny slight to the silvery vampire, and Sora was not pleased.

"This fridge is almost bigger than your kitchen," Roxas said dryly. "And it's so nice that it looks out of place in the rest of this squalor."

"Why… thank you," Sora replied through gritted teeth as he tied an apron around his middle. "It _is_ a very nice refrigerator, isn't it? I'm really grateful to Leon and Riku for it. It has so many shelves," he added.

"Well, at least it's better putting Leon's money to use this way than him buying Demyx another guitar… sitar thing," Roxas allowed, admitting that there was at least one aspect of the Slayer's gift that he found beneficial.

"Alright. Wash your hands and get all ready, while I put everything on the counter," Sora instructed. He paused to stir the bubbling pot on the stove and then continued to the fridge, pulling out cheese and sour cream, before digging out the rest of the ingredients from the cabinets. "Are you done washing yet?"

"Yes," the vampire replied testily, eyeing the Slayer and his apron, which he was slightly envious of even though it was stained and well-worn. His own was gleaming white, pressed and clean and brand new, and it was of a far better quality than the teen's. Rationally, there was no reason for him to want a raggedy old thing like that. He frowned slightly as he picked at the hem.

"Good. The first thing we're going to do are pierogies. Axel likes them because they're basically cheesy mashed potatoes wrapped in dough, and it doesn't get any better than that," Sora explained as a matter-of-fact as he dusted a board in flour and then beat his hands against the apron to clean them off.

Roxas watched the white powder billow out from the Slayer disdainfully, but he remained focused on memorizing every instruction of this recipe. Seeing, learning by example, was far easier than reading it alone. It had been hundreds of years since Roxas had last needed to eat human food, and even then, his aristocratic upbringing meant that he had little actual experience in preparing it. Therefore, he was doubly disadvantaged when it came to cooking, and though Axel would deny it and smile as he crunched into charred broccoli, the number of stir-fries that he had turned out like soup and cakes in which he had accidentally substituted salt for sugar were convincing Roxas that he needed the help of a food-eater. Apparently culinary ability was one of the few things _not_ enhanced by vampirism.

"I've already started boiling the potatoes. All you have to do is buy a bag of them, peel the skin off with this," he said as he held up a potato peeler, "like this," he said as he demonstrated over the sink, "and then chop 'em up. Then you add them to the pot, put in water, place on the stove, and heat them to a boil," he explained clearly, concerned enough by Axel's admissions to stress each point. "I'll show you what they feel like when they're done, since you probably don't want to taste them."

Sora talked the vampire step-by-step through the process of chopping onions and making the filling, and by the time they had started kneading the dough, the Slayer was pleased to notice that they had at least developed a sort of rhythm. Conversation actually seemed to come normally for once, as though the shared act of working the dough was an ice breaker, a common bond.

"If it keeps sticking to your fingers, just use a little bit more flour," Sora advised the vampire beside him. "And you don't have to do it so hard."

"Okay," Roxas said with a nod as he lessened the pressure on the dough and slowed his movements.

"It should only take a few more minutes."

Roxas nodded again and took a mental note. Then he glanced over at the brunet out of the corner of his eye, considering. "Do you cook for Axel a lot?"

Sora blinked and looked to his right. The blonde was _eyeing_ him, sizing him up like he was competition. The Slayer had to control the urge to laugh and roll his eyes. "Not as much as I used to," he tried answering amiably. "He's picked up a few tricks in the time since I've known him, and he doesn't rely on me or fast food like he used to, which is good. There are sometimes that he's just down or busy that I try to make him something. Y'know, food for the soul."

Roxas seemed appeased by this answer and went back to staring at the flour-coated board on the counter in front of him. "You must be good with so much practice. There's no motivator for learning to prepare food like needing to eat all the time."

"Yeah, I guess," the teen replied awkwardly. "Um, my parents taught me a lot of it. Well, not really, since I was still pretty young when they died, but I remembered what I'd seen them do. And it became really important to me once I started Slaying. There's something really soothing about it. It feels good to create something after causing so much destruction."

Roxas made a noise that sounded like a cross between a hum and a grumble. It came across as slightly agreeing.

Sora let out a very low, slow breath, cautious of the silence between them. To his surprise, it was Roxas that spoke next.

"I like doing something that shows Axel I care about him," he said simply. Afterward he bit his lip as though he'd revealed too much.

"He appreciates it," the brunet told him, and he smiled as he realized how true that statement was. No one could suffer through that sort of food for that long if they didn't.

"Are you sure?" the vampire asked hesitantly. He stopped kneading and used his clean forearm to brush golden wisps of hair from his eyes. "He's been refusing to eat lately."

"Well," Sora started, biting his lip nervously, "he did mention to me that he was slightly worried after you made pasta puttanesca for him last night--"

"I followed the instructions exactly this time!" Roxas complained, his eyebrows knitted tightly, showing both anger and disappointment. "I watched the whorish woman on the TV cook pasta, and I even strained it this time. And I might not be able to improvise my own recipes, but I _can_ listen and read."

"Yes, but Axel is allergic to capers. They make him get these red patches, and he sort of swells up," the Slayer said with a grimace, trying not to guilt the vampire but still wanting to make him understand. It seemed to work; the vampire had fully deflated, taken aback. "He's not sure if it would still be as bad for him now that he's changed, but he's not exactly willing to test and find out. It's… not really your fault. You didn't know. It just means you have to do a little more investigating, which is what you're here for, right?"

Sora himself couldn't explain why he was trying to cheer up the least likable member of Riku's family, or why he couldn't at least milk one of the few chances that he actually had to take a jibe at the blonde, but he chalked it up to his natural inability to hold a substantial grudge or truly be cruel.

"And by the way, the last time Axel accidentally ate capers was about a year ago, but it can take a really long time to get out of the system. So if he starts randomly sprouting raised, red patches everywhere, don't freak out. It's probably just another outbreak."

If Sora didn't know Roxas better, he would have thought the blonde was smiling. The brunet pouted, unsure of what evil intentions a smiling Roxas indicated. "What is it?"

The vampire clicked his teeth together before deciding to speak. "I was imagining it. It would look sort of funny," he said with a shrug.

"Not as funny as Riku would with a rash." Sora didn't realize he had said that aloud until well after speaking. He blushed slightly, his eyes darting back down to the dough before him.

"I would pay to see that," Roxas said without missing a beat, still focused on kneading. "Or to see him get sunburned. Not literally burned, as in ashes-- we don't get along so well, but I don't despise him-- but red and uncomfortable, like humans do. That would be a crowning moment of comeuppance."

The brunet chuckled nervously. He couldn't exactly come up with a reasonable way to respond to that. Instead, he searched for something new to discuss, something that would keep the vampire talking, now that the ball was rolling. "So what are turok-han, exactly? Halafernes mentioned them, but I don't recall ever learning what they are. I know Axel has mentioned them to me a handful of times, but I never stopped to ask what they were."

The blonde looked startled by the question for a moment, but quickly narrowed his eyes and prepared to say something condescending. After a brief hesitation, he seemed to decide against it and spoke evenly, his attention back on the dough. "Turok-han are a race of purer vampires." Upon seeing the Slayer's confusion, he elaborated. "They are not made from humans, like us, but are summoned directly from the realm that vampiric demons originally came from, and therefore they are not tainted by humanity whatsoever. There is no room for them to feel humanly things like affection and love and jealousy and bitterness. They are very rare, but they are immensely powerful and will follow orders to the letter. Many different organizations use one or two for security or tracking purposes."

"So… they're like the Terminators of the vampire world, sort of?"

Roxas looked over at him and sneered.

Sora wasn't sure if he just didn't get the reference, or if he understood but found the comparison insulting, or if he was just back to not liking him at all. _'Let's just drop that,'_ he thought carefully.

"Um, so, Leon is nice. I still can't believe he's dating my teacher. To be honest, Mr. Strife was always hanging around the school nurse, and I figured he liked _her_," the teen said with a little confusion, but he soon dismissed the thought. "I guess they're just friends. I like that he's got Leon, though, and vice versa. Leon seems pretty happy about it, right?"

Roxas was silent again, but this time Sora could tell that he was debating internally, trying to figure out what to say. It struck him that the vampire might actually be _bad_ at communicating like this, unused to it.

"He does seem happy," the blonde said in a hushed voice. A tiny smile-- pleased but not without bitterness-- curved his pale pink lips. "Perhaps Cloud will be the one that stands the test of time."

Sora looked over inquiringly. He was curious, but too afraid of being nosy or rude to make an outright question of it.

Roxas acknowledged him with a sigh. "Rinoa, his childhood crush, died because of him. Decades later, he fell in love with the hunter Seifer Almasy, though it was doomed from the start. It was over a hundred years later before he met and turned me. I didn't love him back, not like that, never. So then he moved on to Riku, and they were happy together for a while, at least. And once Riku left, there were just the occasional humans, never meant for love or turning, up until Demyx." Roxas suddenly broke out into laughter. "Most vampires find it nearly impossible to control themselves while turning a human. Apparently Leon-- only Leon could possibly pull it off-- was so used to it that he was able to do it while intoxicated, on _accident_."

"Poor Demyx," Sora said under his breath, his eyes compassionate. "He… he knows, right?"

"Of course he knows," Roxas said seriously. "It's not like he's ever let that get him down. Leon owned up and offered to let him stay, and Demyx did his typical thing of attaching himself to everyone and everything like the spongy little water-brained fungus he is."

Sora laughed, having far too easy of a time imagining the mohawked vampire as some sort of lichen or moss, with his clinging tendencies and fondness for hugs and other physical contact.

"Leon doesn't appear to have any inclination to turn Cloud so far. They seem happy with each other just as it is," the blonde murmured, his voice quiet again. "Maybe that's for the best."

Sora mulled that over as he gave his ball of dough one last pat and then plopped it into a bowl with Roxas'. He wrapped the top of the bowl with plastic and put it into the refrigerator to rest.

The teen sighed happily as he stood in front of the fridge, the doors cast wide open, basking in the size and spaciousness and cleanliness of it all. He couldn't help but grin as he scanned the tall, wide shelves and fresh-smelling plastic bins and drawers. He had nearly crawled inside when it was first installed, both out of sheer joy and because he _could_ physically fit into this fridge, unlike the last one. Plus, this one wasn't full of noxious smells like the old one.

Roxas watched blankly from the side, his cornflower blue eyes glazed as he tried to put himself in the Slayer's shoes and understand his alarming fascination with the large kitchen appliance. "I don't even…" he mumbled under his breath, giving up and turning back to the counter.

The blonde waited impatiently for another ten seconds before huffing, "Well, what do we do now?"

Sora closed the fridge and hummed thoughtfully. "I could either show you how to make green bean casserole," he suggested as he lifted a can of cream of mushroom soup, "or chili the way Axel likes it."

"Which does he like more?"

Sora's head tilted as he thought it over. "He likes them both the same, I think. He eats chili more often, but he gets serious cravings for green bean casserole."

Roxas contemplated silently, his slightly furrowed eyebrows almost impossible to see under the pieces of golden hair that fell across his forehead and into his eyes. "Whichever is harder to make, then."

The teen smiled and began pulling different spices out of the cabinet above the stove. He handed each one to the vampire so that he could familiarize himself with them. "Chili it is. This is cumin, this is cayenne, this is chili powder, this is smoked paprika," he rattled off to Roxas, pointing each out in turn. "I'll show you how much of each to put in. First we need to chop some onions and peppers. You can do the onions," he added, thinking of the way he was reduced to tears every time he so much as split an onion, while the blonde was apparently impervious to the vegetable's irritants.

"Alright," the vampire said with a small, self-pleased smile. He liked having an advantage in cooking that the Slayer didn't and he didn't bother trying to hide it.

"It's a good thing that garlic stuff is just a myth," Sora chuckled as he grabbed a clove and whacked it hard with the broad side of his knife to loosen the skin.

Roxas froze and whipped his head in the brunet's direction, his eyes wide and scared. "G-garlic?"

Sora's smile evaporated and was replaced with an open-mouthed, horrified look as his body tensed worriedly. He had-- through painful trial and error-- discovered garlic was about as useful at warding off vampires as cinnamon toothpaste was, but he was stricken with the fear that perhaps he'd been mistaken, or that garlic-allergy a rarity among vampires like peanut allergies are in humans. He didn't _really_ want to kill Riku's brother, or even make his throat swell shut. He was more than ready to chuck the garlic out the window, through the glass and all, when he heard a snicker.

"Just kidding," the blonde said lightly, smiling again as he went back to chopping the onion, his arms and hands making sharp, confident movements. "You panic easily."

"Nuh-uh," the teen argued, simmering as he minced cloves of garlic. The knife clicked and clanged as he cut, leaving deep gashes in the board underneath. "Forgive me for sparing a concerned thought. Sheesh."

"You were actually worried?" One of the blonde's eyebrows quirked upward slowly as he studied the boy to his left. "It's not very pleasant, but garlic doesn't smell nearly strong enough to bother vampires. But humans really believe that it hurts us? They're so strange. And you're the strangest," he decided with a minute nod.

The hint of fondness in Roxas' words-- or at least, what sounded an awful lot like it-- let Sora grin unabashedly. And it wasn't often that he could smile so widely or honestly when in this particular vampire's company. "Thanks. You're pretty weird for a vampire, too. And I generally regard vampires to be quite abnormal."

The blonde wrinkled his nose. While he didn't look nearly as appreciative of the comment as the Slayer did, neither did he lash out or make an open disagreement.

'_Progress!'_ the teen thought with a glee that almost frightened him. "I just meant that, you know… you like Axel, who was a human and now is a werewolf, and you're pretty hospitable to him and me, and I guess that's uncommon for vampires."

Roxas stared at him blankly. "Thank you for reminding me, Slayer. I had nearly forgotten that detail that has effectively cut me off from the rest of respectable society." He let out a weary, anxious sigh. "This decade's family reunion is going to be so upsetting," he lamented to himself as he dumped the vegetables from his cutting board into the pot on the stove.

There was a beat of silence, and then, "But it's worth it, right?"

Golden-yellow spikes bobbed and bounced as the vampire hesitatingly nodded, his pale lips slowly curling up at the corners. "It is."

"That's what matters. Of course, it's easy for me to say. I don't have to worry about hiding my nonliving, cradle-robbing, two-hundred-something boyfriend from my family, or introducing him to them. And I have no reputation with my peers to speak of, so nothing lost there. Sort of lucked out in those regards, I guess." He chuckled to himself, and then felt mildly pathetic for having found benefits in being a socially outcast orphan.

"I don't really remember what it was like to have family. Prior to the current one, if it counts," Roxas murmured. "I don't remember a whole lot of my human life, actually." He stared at the wall behind the stove as he stirred the pot, unblinking. "It's probably harder with those memories?"

Sora shrugged. "The Watchers' note said that it was… for the best. If my parents had still been alive, I would have had to leave them or else they would be in harm's way just by living with me and being related to me. The Watchers pulled strings and kept any social workers from poking around and trying to get me into a foster home, and I get a nice little stipend. That's about it, but even that I'm pretty grateful for."

"I can't believe they didn't instruct you," the vampire said suddenly, his face hard and his eyes gleaming with distaste. Sora wasn't entirely certain how much of that distaste stemmed from pre-existing dislike of the anti-vampire organization and how much applied specifically to him and his neglected training. He liked to think it was the latter that mostly upset the blonde vampire, if only to make himself feel a little better.

"They left a book," Sora said with a half grimace, half smile. "Really, I just sort of wish I'd gotten the sort of community support that other places give the Slayer-- the ones that believe legends about it and try to pass on knowledge and aid us. Seems like that would have been more helpful than anything."

"The original function of the Watchers was to train and assist the Chosen One in his or her fight, so they didn't have to rely on their society's opinions and knowledge. They've drifted over the millennia. The new Director, Cidolfus, is so focused on training hunters rather than the Slayer. It is not an _entirely_ invalid point," the blonde said reluctantly, his pointed teeth showing slightly as his upper lip curled up a bit. "An army of skilled, well trained, magically inclined humans is a powerful method to fighting vampires and demons, and good in that they can be spread out. But to almost completely disregard the reason they formed in the first place, and the indisputable fact that destiny itself chose a protector! How misguided and moronic. But then again, not entirely unexpected coming from humans." He shrugged, as if it could not be helped. "Especially _those_ ones."

"You've met a lot of Watchers, have you?" Sora asked amusedly, careful to hide any signs of a grin from the fired-up vampire.

"No, of course not. They're like rodents in the woodwork," Roxas said flatly. "They don't fight anything themselves. They exist to record and share knowledge, to clear the way for their pawns. They thrive in hidden libraries and underground training facilities and tiny shacks in Tibetan villages," he said with a roll of his eyes. "You'd be hard pressed to spot a Watcher unless you were being taught or raised by one."

Sora chuckled and leaned back against the countertop. "Such animosity…"

"It's not misplaced."

"I wouldn't mind a helping hand from them," Sora replied. "Could use it with all of these things trying to kill me and whatnot. Well, more than usual, you know."

Roxas was biting his lip when Sora looked over at him. "Let's not talk about it. Ugh. How do you even plan on fixing that? Stopping the Palliata? Nevermind. It's too impossible to think about right now."

The Slayer's head lolled back and he groaned lowly. "I know. And to think, a year ago I was scared of my algebra teacher. Oh, what I wouldn't give for those halcyon days," he said with a little dramatic flair and a theatric slump onto the kitchen counter, which made the vampire crack a small smile.

"And now you're scared of vampires, as you should be. You should feel enlightened to actually fear something worthwhile now."

"Ha. Ha. Ha," the teen straightened back up and quickly turned the knob on the stove down a notch. "Uh, speaking of how weird and scary vampires are… do you guys always, um, follow people around?"

"It's a part of our skill set," Roxas replied unsurely. "Following people is how we eat?" His expression was pained, as if he truly thought the Slayer had forgotten this.

"No, no, not that. I meant the people that you _like_," the brunet clarified. "Because I've been comparing the experiences of other people in the same position," he said firmly, thinking of himself, Axel and Cloud, "and we all seem to have this in common. And it's not cool," he added, his breath hitching and his cheeks reddening as he recalled the incidents where he'd caught Riku lurking around his house. Really, you could only use the 'I thought I might have dropped my hellfire forged blood-dagger out here earlier' excuse so many times before it lost merit.

"Why do all of you humans get so upset about that?" Roxas asked sharply as he slapped the wooden stirring spoon down on the counter. "It's not like any of us were trying to kill you. You'd actually be safer with us stalking you--"

"That's not the point," Sora interrupted, his index finger held up authoritatively. "When people do that to other people, they get restraining orders. And those people are generally creeps and psychos." He paused for a moment. "Now that I think about it, it makes total sense. Creepy and psychotic…"

"What are you suggesting?" the vampire asked, affronted by the criticism.

"Nothing," Sora said quickly-- too quickly for Roxas to believe, so he narrowed his venomous blue eyes to slivers and stared at the brunet suspiciously.

"I know what you were getting at, and I'm not going to forget it."

"What was I suggesting?" the Slayer asked with a hint of a teasing smile.

"You know."

"What?"

"What?" Roxas asked right back, frustratingly confused by the teen but also tempted to laugh.

"The- nevermind, it doesn't matter now, I guess."

There was a split-second of urgent, horrible _knowing_, triggered by that heightened understanding of danger, that almost sixth sense that a Slayer had that let them duck just in time, or block at the last possible second. It came with a sudden pang of alarm that made his chest tingle, and from briefly looking over at Roxas, the feeling was shared. The two had barely met each other's chilled gazes before a crash of snapping wood and cracking tile made both bolt to the far side of the room, near the doorway joined with the living room to the kitchen.

They watched as the huge fist-- as white as flour but tinged fiery red in places, as though it was being burned by invisible flames-- stuck through and swept side to side, tearing a hole through dry wall and wiring and wood. Another crash signaled a second large hand entering the fray, exploding through the window above the sink and throwing something small and dark into the house, where it rolled across the kitchen floor and finally came to a stop underneath the table, still teetering slightly.

Sora felt the cold hand grip him around the neck and pull, dragging him through the door and into the next room. Almost in slow-motion he saw the red explosion that shot up through his kitchen table, cracking it into hundreds of burning, flying pieces, before expanding to fill the kitchen. He saw the rugs and hand-towels curl into black chars as soon as they were touched by the demonic fire, could see the tiled floor instantly turn black with a spider's web of glowing red cracks pulsing through it. He felt an extra tug, and it seemed like a matter of inches kept him from being engulfed in that burning red cloud as well.

He gasped when Roxas finally let go of him, the two lying in a heaving heap on the far side of the living room. Sora could see ordinary flames burning now, licking up from the kitchen doors, covering the walls, ignited everywhere that the demon-fire had fizzled out and given way to the regular variety. Smoke was already layering on the ceiling, thick and dark like a blanket, still with the faint stench of something unnatural and acrid.

And then suddenly the teen's hearing turned back on, and amidst the popping and cracking of his home and possessions, there was Roxas' desperate voice.

"--need to go right now! They're waiting for us outside, to trap us, but soon enough of the house will be burned that the protection won't stop them coming in! It's barely keeping them at bay now!"

"What?" Sora asked dumbly, still dazed by the glow and the heat.

Roxas was on top of him, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him fiercely. "Turok-han are out there. Do you have… do you have some sort of secret escape tunnel?" he asked urgently, his brow creased with worry.

"N-no, why would I have a tunnel if I couldn't even get a decent fridge until just now?"

"I don't know! But I don't know how else to get out of this."

"My big trunk upstairs in my bedroom has the good weapons in it. The one with leather straps on the top. Can you get it? The smoke doesn't bother you."

Without a word, the vampire darted up the stairs, disappearing into the thick black. He returned only moments later, the hefty wooden trunk balanced on one shoulder. Roxas set it down in the corner next to Sora, the one place-- for the time being, at least-- that was safe from both the flames and any intruders.

"No, no… no," the Slayer muttered as he dug through the box, lifting up false bottom after false bottom and searching through progressively more dangerous and unusual weapons. "I've never dealt with those turok things before. I've never even seen one!"

"I thought this sort of thing was your job!" Roxas bit out, stuffing his hands into the trunk and feeling around as well. He frantically grabbed up handfuls of bottles and throwing knives and sealed bags of powders, examining each before tossing it back.

"Would this work?" Sora held up a roll of razor-wire, the silvery thread glinting in the firelight. "String it around and wait for them to come inside, then bam! They walk right into it and get chopped and cut up like vegetables!"

The blonde vampire only glanced up briefly and then resumed his speed-reading of the labels on devices and concoctions. "Yeah, that stuff would be really useful-- if we want to give them some floss for after they bite our flesh off in chunks," he said bitterly, still sifting through the pile.

Sora cursed and threw the spool of wire back. He half-heartedly raked through the items at the bottom of the trunk, knowing he'd already looked over each one and could not find a suitable weapon in the bunch. Resigned, he picked up a set of sturdy knives and waited until Roxas gave up and picked a weapon, too, so they could wait for the fight.

'_Maybe we can still ambush them,'_ the brunet was thinking as he checked the blades one last time and started picking up some light throwing knives also.

"Wait-- you have Devil's Dung?" Roxas was carefully turning a medium sized glass jar filled with amber colored powder, his lips moving slightly as he read the details on the label.

"I have what?" the teen asked, skeptically eyeing the bottle, which was sealed inside of two Ziploc bags and taped shut.

"You know how garlic isn't strong enough to deter a vampire? Well, this is about a thousand times worse than garlic is," the vampire said with a slight gulp as he passed the container to Sora. "It's not going to be as effective on the turok-han, but if we're fast enough, and if there are only two or three, you just hit them in the face with that and they'll be distracted for a good few minutes. They probably won't be able to smell correctly for a few days, either."

"What about you?" Sora watched as the vampire squirmed a little, clearly uncomfortable with the crux of the plan.

"Don't worry about me. You focus on incapacitating them, and I'll worry about staying away from that pungent shit. I'll watch your back, though," he added quietly, picking up a sword that dwarfed him as he stood.

"What if-- um, nevermind." The Slayer didn't want to think about what they would do if there were more than three of the uber-vampires out there, and he didn't want to make Roxas think about it either, although he probably was already. Sora found himself thankful that at least he had the blonde here with him.

"At least one is probably waiting by the kitchen area-- once enough of the house is burned, that will be the first place that the protection falls," the vampire said tonelessly. "We could go out either of these two windows." He indicated each to the Slayer and then looked at him expectantly. "Well, what do you think?"

"We go out the left one and keep running that direction, so it's not like we're headed toward your place. We can turn around once it's clear."

"Okay."

Roxas came and stood next to him, so both of their backs faced the fire and the burned out half of his home, and both of their fronts were aimed at the window in the corner-- the one Sora had always looked out of impatiently when Axel was supposed to come over and was always five minutes late, which happened to be the same window where he had once caught Riku purposefully leaving his belongings behind so he would have an excuse to come back. They both started running at the same time, working up just enough speed that after they crashed through the glass together they got about six feet before landing.

Sora landed heavily on the balls of his feet, turning just in time to see two tall, broad figures approaching him at a quick speed, but obviously quite casually and with low expectations. That would be a blessing.

The teen had no idea where Roxas was, but he hoped it was far enough. His hands were shaking as he tried to loosen the lid, his eyes still trained on the turok-han as they came ever closer, proceeding with a business-like disinterest.

The second that the lid came off he saw the two vampires recoil slightly, taken aback by the aggressive smell-- reeking of all things sulfur and cabbage and manure at once-- and in that fraction of a second he scooped up a handful of the light brown powder and threw it square in the face of the closest turok-han while chucking the rest of the powder, jar and all, at the one that stood further back. It hit him square in the forehead and shattered, spraying glass and Devil's Dung all over his head and face.

Both turok-han shook their heads violently, trying to clear away the offending smell and burn. The one in the back was on its knees, clawing and wiping at its face wildly. Just as Sora tried to turn and run, a sickly cold hand closed around his throat and dragged him back. He felt his body lifted off of the ground and his head tilted and twisted so that he was forced to look into the face of the turok-han that was holding him.

It was like looking at nothing-- so blank and smooth that it might not even be a face at all, but just a white mask with black eyes. The way it looked at him made him feel sick and vile and angry. Sora clenched his jaw so hard that his teeth ached from the pressure, determined not to flinch or look away. He redoubled his efforts to break free, digging his fingers and nails into its arms and thrashing wildly, all of which only served to strain his neck more, still held in that vise of a hand.

And then it tightened, and Sora kicked frantically as he felt the air stop, and then he went still when he heard something within him crack and pain made him dizzy, and then he felt himself hit the ground, gasping and still choking and coughing up saliva. The skin around his neck stung painfully, and when he touched it his fingertips were coated in red. The way the turok-han's hand-- far colder than any vampire-- had stuck to him, the same way an ice cube or cold metal sticks to skin, made Sora shiver in disgust.

He saw Roxas' black and white checkered shoes run past, and hurried to stand and follow. The brunet only spared one glance backward as he chased after the blonde vampire-- his home, still burning; the two turok-han stumbling around, one with the blade of a sword lodged in the back of his shoulder; the sounds of sirens approaching, and the lights of nearby homes turning on as people stepped out onto their porches to watch the flames; the turok-han fleeing in an instant, leaving through some dark portal just out of sight of the emerging humans.

The last four minutes (because that was all it was, from the time the bomb went off to the escape from the house) seemed to have lasted an hour or more. Sora could feel his knees shake and wobble every time one of his feet hit the pavement, and he couldn't understand why he hadn't crumpled and fallen yet. Blood had trickled down his chest and occasionally came off in droplets, leaving red specks on his sneakers and on the ground. He wondered if that was why Roxas was staying so far ahead of him.

The blonde had attacked that turok-han that was holding him. Sora knew he would be dead if the vampire hadn't. The feeling was like a tingly, subtly cold chill; even having had close calls before, the teen wasn't immune to the sensation of death hovering so near. He shook it off as he ran, bringing his mind back from the previous events and to the constant thudding of his feet on the ground and the peace and blankness that brought.

It was a long time, maybe hours, before Roxas finally slowed, having led Sora out through a wooded are far from the city and near a muddy creek. He waited silently for the Slayer to get close, and then held up his hand and surveyed him carefully. "Don't get so close. We need to get rid of all this blood before we start going back, or they'll be able to follow your trail of drips. You should probably leave those clothes. There's a cabin nearby that might have something to can change into, so I'll go look. Also, scrub as much of that stuff off as you can."

Sora looked down and was surprised to see some of the resin powder still clinging to his hands, as well as ash and flecks of blood. He took careful note of Roxas before he left and saw how red and swollen his eyes and nose were, inflamed-- he surmised-- from the intense odor.

Without hesitation, the Slayer descended the rocky bank, carefully picking his way in the dark, and stripped, examining himself as he did so. With calm setting in, he was able to take account of the tiny scratches that laced his arms and legs-- probably from broken glass-- and other small cuts and gashes that he couldn't clearly remember getting. Bruises were everywhere and looked especially ghastly in the pale moonlight filtering in. Sora didn't even want to consider the burning, throbbing of his neck, hoping that it wasn't too serious. He let his blood-stained clothes drift down with the current and felt a pang of sadness as they were gone, washed away like everything else had been burned away.

As he splashed cold water onto the dried crust of blood around his neck he felt the necklace there and carefully removed it before scrubbing it clean of the dark stickiness that was caked onto it. He set it on a nearby rock, along with a few cleaned knives and his watch, his neck too raw to wear it. He washed the grey ashes and streaks of blood and black smudges of soot from his hair and body and regretfully remembered all of the things he had left behind. All of his pictures of his family; every thoughtful weapon and doodle and letter Axel had given him; all of his books, including the gifts from Riku; all of his weapons and clothes and favourite mementos.

He sighed and straightened up, wrapping his arms around his chest and shivering as bitter wind increased the sting of the cold water. It wasn't long before Roxas returned with an armful of towels and clothes that were two sizes too large.

As Sora quickly toweled off-- taking care to softly sponge the tender area of his throat-- the vampire clambered down the bank and knelt down in the shallow stream to wash his face and remove his own clothing and scrub away any traces from the night. "Just to be sure," he had explained to the teen. "It's definitely going to be personal now, and we don't want to leave any advertisements about where we go."

After drying off, the blonde tore open a roll of bandages and began winding them around the boy's neck as he grumbled about not being able to find any peroxide or alcohol. He proceeded with care after the Slayer flinched and gasped at the first contact with his bruised and bloodied skin. He helped him put on a big flannel shirt and sweatpants and then dressed himself in a stained shirt and jeans, handed him socks to put on (which the teen was immensely thankful for, as he hadn't felt his toes for a long while now) and the two left the woods for the city, with Sora tucking his necklace and knives into the shirt pocket.

"We need to walk fast. It's almost sunrise," Roxas said tensely as they grew closer to the vampire's apartment. He checked his watch every few minutes, always quickening his pace after doing so.

Sora sped up as best he could, but the night had left him drained, and the aches and fatigues from battle were finally beginning to catch up, and with a vengeance. He couldn't even summon up embarrassment at the sour looks he received from the crisp businessmen they passed as he stumbled and slumped through the city streets, too busy being thankful that at least he had socks, unlike Roxas, and that they were almost safe. By the time they were finally inside the elevator of the apartment building he wanted to collapse, and with no more pressing needs to stay conscious-- since they were practically home to Leon and Riku-- he did.

* * *

"Hey. Hey, Sla-Sora… Sora."

Icy fingers were running through his hair and across his scalp, and every now and then he felt a cool palm lightly brush over his burning forehead. He tried craning his neck upward to get closer, to be able to feel that same soothing chill all over his head, but that hurt, so he stopped.

"Sora. C'mon, wake up. How do you feel?"

"Am I dead?" were the first words out of his mouth, which took even him by surprise, since he hadn't been planning on speaking. His eyes opened and Riku's face was hovering above his own, looking simultaneously relieved and annoyed.

"What sort of question is that? Of course you're not dead. Don't say things like that," the vampire said testily.

"Geez, sorry," Sora bit back, and then moaned when a sudden ache in his neck seemed to pierce straight up to the back of his skull.

"Damn it, are you alright? Where does it hurt?" Riku flitted around the bed, growing more and more aggravated when nothing he did seemed to make the brunet any less pained. He compulsively smoothed out the covers and checked the temperature of the heated blanket down by the boy's feet. "Are you thirsty yet? Hungry? Axel went and picked you out all kinds of snacks and foods. And there's Gatorade, milk, orange juice, tea, and some kind of chocolate soy milk if you get thirsty. And water, of course-- we had that already. All you have to do is say the word. There's these little cups of red goo--"

"Mmm. Not hungry or thirsty. Keep touching my face." Sora turned his head slowly so that he faced Riku, who was now sitting on a stool next to the bed, and then closed his eyes. "Please."

Cold hands hesitantly cupped the teen's head. Darkened eyelids fluttered shut and Riku ran his thumbs gently over the boy's closed eyes. The vampire's hands seemed to suck all of the excess heat right out of him, which was a welcome relief. And the longer Riku did it, the less Sora's head seemed to throb and the more he could think clearly.

"Just… don't say anything about dying or being dead for a while," Riku said softly. "When Axel called and said he'd heard about turok-han and a fire at the Slayer's house, I… well, if my heart had been beating, it would have stopped."

Sora smiled at that.

"Don't be happy about that," the vampire chided, but not without a smile of his own. "You must have hurt your neck badly. It was swollen for all of yesterday."

"If felt like something broke when it grabbed me, but thank goodness for Slayer super-adrenaline," Sora said with a weak pump of his fist. "It didn't start really hurting until we were headed back. Now it feels _really_ bad," he said with an unintentional pout that made Riku's chest ache and his jaw clench with frustration.

"I'm sorry," he apologized, still stroking the teen's feverish skin. He could never keep his eyes off of Sora's neck for long-- the dark purple bruises that wringed it, reaching up to his jaw and down by his collar, as well as the scabbed over pattern of a hand, were distracting and guilt-inducing.

"It's not your fault. I just feel bad. I don't want to make _you_ feel bad, though," the boy croaked from the bed.

Riku shrugged and decided to lay off of voicing the guilt that had settled down into the pit of his stomach, knowing that Sora would only worry about convincing him that he shouldn't feel this way; he wanted the Slayer to focus only on himself, on healing. "Turok-han produce injuries that even superior healing takes a while to fix. Adding in a cold doesn't help much, either."

"Yeah, I feel miserable. And I take it Roxas must have told you what happened?"

"He did, but Leon, Demyx and I heard it first from Axel. Apparently word of a fire at the Slayer's house and turok-han being in the area spread fairly quickly. I had just gotten home from patrolling the cemetery when he called us, but by the time Leon and I got to your house, the fire was almost out and you two were nowhere to be found. All we could smell was fire and asafoetida-- absolutely terrible, by the way."

"I should thank Axel for that," Sora laughed weakly. "And it was a good thing Roxas recognized it."

Riku nodded and pushed the sweat-dampened pieces of cinnamon hair up and away from the boy's forehead. "That was a brilliant trump card. You were lucky they didn't expect that." Riku didn't want to think about how greatly the existence of his brother and the life of the boy he loved had rested on one last-ditch tactic. It was too close of a call to be happy about, to even try to sound optimistic, but Sora in this state…

"So lucky," the teen agreed, "although I don't feel like it at the moment."

"Bathing outdoors in freezing weather while sporting serious injuries typically isn't conducive to good health," Riku reminded him. "I went to the store and bought fourteen different kinds of cold medicines and painkillers because I wasn't sure what you like or need exactly."

The vampire sat on the bed next to Sora and rattled the names off of each box, as well as what they helped relieve, and then murmured, "I also might have helped myself to some of the prescription-only painkillers in the back, so--"

"Yes, please," the Slayer said as enthusiastically as he could, smiling up at the silver-haired vampire admiringly.

"I thought as much."

"I feel like someone attacked my throat with sandpaper, inside and out," the boy murmured as he took a sip of water and a tiny blue pill that the vampire slipped into his hand.

Riku listened and heard Sora's bright, almost joking tone, as well as the soft, spontaneous giggle that followed and smiled, happy to see him able to cope so well with a near death experience. Although that also worried him.

'_No one should be anywhere near cheerful after getting manhandled by turok-han assassins,'_ he mused with some glumness and suspicion, but supposed it could be chalked up to the teen's bouncier personality. _'He's just not normal,'_ was the vampire's conclusion.

And Riku was fairly certain that suppressing his feelings on the whole situation would just end up making him more frustrated, but he couldn't find it in himself to bring up his worries and guilt and roiling anger to the boy that had somehow held onto a sliver of optimism. The inevitability of another strike, further action, and questions of what to do; how horribly handled this last incident had been, how unprepared any of them were, how much he'd failed to protect Sora; the burning hate for anyone who would attack someone he cared so much for, so intense and focused that he felt it might burn a hole right through his body-- if keeping a lid on the negativity that plagued him would let the Slayer avoid it for a little bit longer, to heal without that cloud hanging over him, that was alright.

Without realizing it, Riku had reached out and begun smoothing the boy's messy pile of hair.

"How much longer until this goes away?" Sora was looking up at him with a creased brow and his lower lip jutting out just slightly; it was almost as though the vampire's touch had transferred some of his own inner turmoil into the brunet.

"Do you mean… your throat?" He could surmise that the teen hadn't meant it that specifically, but he didn't have an answer for the extended problem with the Palliata; it certainly wouldn't 'go away' on its own, no matter how much he wished for it.

"Yeah, I guess." The Slayer accepted that and smoothed out his covers with a small smile and a look down.

"Few days, maybe. I'm sure the werewolf is pouring through his books right now to find something to help speed it up."

Sora nodded the barest bit, not wanting to strain his injuries any more. "Sorry I'm taking up your bed," he murmured guiltily.

"You really think I'd be bothered by that? There's plenty of room for both of us. Besides, we might as well get used to it-- this isn't going to be the last time you wind up in my bed," he teased, winking at the brunet and grinning.

"Oh yeah?"

"Of course. It's inevitable. You're not going to be out on the couch. I mean, you're living here now, aren't you?" As soon as the words were out, Riku's smile faltered a little as he realized that maybe the Slayer hadn't jumped to the same conclusion as he and the rest of his family had. Perhaps he would rather be with another human that would take him in, like Cloud, or Axel, since they were obviously such good friends. He suddenly felt very stupid. "Sorry, I--"

"No, I mean… uh." The teen blushed and wrinkled his nose as he sorted out what he wanted to say. "If you're offering, I mean. I… don't want to mooch off of anyone, but I don't see any other alternatives right now. I don't know if it would look good for an ex-student to start living with a teacher, and I'm pretty sure Roxas would go psycho if I started edging in on his Axel-zone, and my options are pretty limited. Not that I mean to say that you're, like, my last choice! Because you're not! You're the first, actually," he added hastily. "I can pay Leon for while I stay here, and I can start looking for a new place just as soon as I get better."

"We'll see," Riku said amusedly. "Leon's not going to take your money, and he-- _we_-- will ask you to reconsider leaving at all."

"I dunno…"

"We'll talk about it later. Rest for now," the vampire ordered gently, lifting up one of the Slayer's hands and pressing his lips to it carefully. He held the boy's hand, stroked his damp, hot skin occasionally-- hoping to make him more comfortable-- until it seemed that he was finally drifting off. Just before the vampire stood to leave and report back to Axel and Leon and all of the other worried people, the brunet started and found Riku's eyes in the darkness, his own looking sleepy and confused and a little mischievous.

"Hey… earlier, were you implying that we're going to start sleeping together? As in, _sleeping together_?"

"I would never do something so indecent. Now hush and go to sleep."

* * *

**Yeah, I'm finally getting around to serious, romantical stuff next chapter. If you've stuck around through the ramblings of this story for this long, I feel like I should give it an honest shot. It'll be an adventure all around!**

**Thanks to everyone who has reviewed and continues to do so! **


	13. Ephemeris

**Happy post-Valentine's Day everyone! (Time for discounted chocolates, mmm.) Perfect timing for a love-themed chapter, right?**

"The sense of the world is short, -  
Long and various the report, -  
To love and be beloved;  
Men and gods have not outlearned it;  
And, how oft soe'er they've turned it,  
'Tis not to be improved."

---Ralph Waldo Emerson, Eros

* * *

"I think we need more ice cream."

"And by 'we', you of course mean, 'you'," Roxas responded tonelessly, casting a knowing glare toward the Slayer. "You're not even sick anymore, and I still don't see how eating that helps the _outside_ of your neck--"

"It won't kill us to get him more ice cream. It's not like we need the freezer for anything anyway," Riku reminded the blonde. He turned to Sora and gave him a kind smile. "You can have all the ice cream you want. As long as it doesn't, y'know… start to show. Then I'm weaning you off of it."

"So romantic," the brunet said around a spoonful of chocolate gelato. "I'll love you no matter what, too." Sarcasm dripped off of his words like the fudge and melting dessert was dripping from his spoon.

"I never said I'd stop loving you," the vampire scoffed. "Just that I'd pry that oversized spoon out of your vise-like grip and make you start eating healthy again. _Because_ I love you. It's an act of kindness. Your heart would thank me."

"My tongue, stomach and brain wouldn't, though."

Sora carefully scratched an itch on the side of his neck, gently and lightly enough not to make any pain flare up. The skin had mostly healed over the last few days, but the light red welt that still stretched up and down one side of his throat was tender to the touch, and the back of his neck was prone to bouts of soreness. At least with his enhanced healing he'd only had to deal with the scabbing phase for about two days-- that had been disgusting.

It did, however, solidify Sora's security in Riku's devotion. Only someone deeply concerned for their bedridden boyfriend could sit there and clean up the ooze from flaked off scabs, disinfect sores every hour or so, wipe a never-ending runny nose, and spoon-feed him Jell-O and applesauce like clockwork for days on end. The Slayer knew that his taking care of Riku after the incident with the naga hadn't been _near_ as intensive, thanks to aid from the snake-people, and he appreciated everything Riku and his family were doing for him.

Even if Roxas was still, you know… _Roxas_. The brunet idly licked the last of the chocolate from his spoon, lost in thought.

Nothing could make that vampire change his ways. He'd once doodled a comic of the blonde flicking away the little angel sitting on his shoulder and then high-fiving the tiny devil. He just seemed that heartless most of the time. Or at least Sora had thought all of that, until he had padded silently into the kitchen one evening, yearning for a popsicle, only to see the petite vampire hurriedly finishing up a carton of Riku or Demyx's pig blood and then sneaking out early, not even realizing his secret eating habits had been exposed.

Later that evening, after Roxas had come back from visiting Axel at the bar, he had sneered when Demyx once-again offered him some of the fresh batch of refrigerated blood and nonchalantly declared that he'd gotten his fill at a fast food joint. Sora's ensuing giggle-snort had made the vampire confusedly grunt "What?" and then leave the table for his room, where he spent most of his hours at home.

It was surprisingly easy to get into the rhythm of life with the vampire family. Not yet fully healed and with numerous concerned individuals practically herding him back into bed or onto the couch any time he spent more than five minutes on his feet, Sora had been unable to slay; Riku and Axel both volunteered to do the bulk of the routine, with even Roxas lending a hand at times. And any time that Riku was gone, the Slayer found himself watched over by one of the others-- typically Leon, who had a quiet way of showing that deep down, he cared, even if he mostly just sat there reading and warning the teen not to do certain things that were not conducive to healing.

Most of these warnings were directed toward Demyx, actually, who seemed to forget often that Sora was injured and thought that surprise hugs were okay. Of course, when the gentle vampire _hadn't_ forgotten about the brunet's state, he doted on the Slayer with so much heart that it made Sora feel a twinge of that same feeling one gets upon seeing a puppy sneeze. Taped up on the wall next to the bed were numerous watercolors of ocean scenes and collages made out of pictures of food, which he apparently thought would please the human. The sitarist had even put some of his favourite and most soothing songs onto CDs for Sora to listen to when he was alone, though it was rare that he was ever devoid of company, and live performances by Demyx on his sitar were a more common occurrence.

After just four days with Leon's family, Sora had gotten used to the total reversal of hours, the constant destruction and breaking of random appliances and goods not built to endure superhuman strength, the apparent inability of any of them (aside from Riku) to use the thermostat properly, the general confusion regarding food ("How was I supposed to know that goes in the refrigerator? I don't eat it!"), the way the smell of blood sometimes filled the fridge, the tendency of Demyx to spill it on the counter and forget to clean it up (or worse, when he tried to lick it up), the seemingly endless number of inside jokes and references accumulated over decades that Sora couldn't understand for multiple reasons, and the casual way hundreds of dollars would be spent on alcohol or gadgets or books or clothes or musical instruments on any given day. (The teen had nearly had a fit of hyperventilation when Riku came home with an entirely new-- and obviously expensive-- wardrobe just for him, but he was comforted a little to know that that sort of thing was just par for the course here.)

It was weird. _They_ were weird. And Sora supposed the average person would have been far more disoriented by so much, but he had adjusted-- a little too quickly and a little too well, in his own opinion.

The boy was grateful for Axel and Cloud, though, who continued to be his link to relatively normal humanity and supplied him with all of the little things that the vampires tended to overlook due to their inhuman condition. Nail clippers, chapstick, salt, pepper, and other spices: these were just a few of the simple things that the two brought in for Sora that made Riku groan and slap his forehead, murmuring "That's right…" as he remembered their importance to living individuals.

As soon as Roxas left the room, the brunet came out of his quiet, catching Riku's attention with a loud and important-sounding clearing of his throat. "I noticed that you bought me some… _interesting_ outfits, Riku," Sora commented as he dumped his empty ice cream bowl into the sink and started fishing in the fridge for orange juice. "I hope those weren't intended for slaying, because they're very impractical."

"I was thinking you could wear them whenever," the vampire said with a shrug.

"You and Leon and Roxas might be able to pour yourselves into leather pants, but I don't think I can," he said with a deep blush. "Just the thought of it gives me wedgies."

"That's why you don't wear-- oh, nevermind. Just hang onto them. Maybe you'll change your mind one day. On a special occasion of some sort," Riku hinted, smirking devilishly.

"Hahaha, no. Don't even get me started on some of the underwear you picked out. Do I look like a girl?" Sora added in a vicious whisper. "Because I don't think guys' underwear ever looks like that. They don't look like they were made for guy-hips."

"Eh, you'll look good in anything," he replied tonelessly, looking a little too dreamily absent for Sora's tastes.

"That's not what I mean," the teen said in exasperation, flopping his head down onto the counter and sighing. "Are you even listening to me?"

"A little bit. I'm sort of distracted--"

"I can tell," the brunet said with a grin. "Would I be as distracting if you mentally imagined me in sweatpants and a regular old shirt?"

"You're _always_ taking my attention away from other matters, no matter what," the vampire said seriously. "When I was out staking things earlier I started thinking about that time you made a stake-boomerang and tried to use it on that one running away, and when it circled back you ended up doing a back-flip to dodge it, and I remember you looked so beautiful and focused and deadly while you were in the air… and then you fell when you hit the ground and rolled into that puddle of spilled soda, but it was really remarkable up until that point."

"That started off so sweet," Sora said with a roll of his eyes and a hint of red on his cheeks at the mention of one of his less than impressive moments.

"You look wonderful in any state of dress or _undress_," Riku said with a sly smirk. "But it doesn't hurt to try and wear clothes that at least show you off every now and then, right? Ones that _don't_ hide you like a burlap sack? Or are covered in stains? Full of holes?"

"Still, the skintight mesh seems a little much," the teen said sourly, his pout accentuated by a dark glare toward the vampire across from him.

"Like I said-- there's an occasion for everything. I picked you out plenty of baggy shorts and pop culture t-shirts and oversized hoodies, so don't get all upset when I pick out a couple of pieces that I find attractive, too. It won't kill you to try them on."

"_Half_ of the stuff you got me is either too nice or too sluttish for slaying and sitting around, and I'm pretty sure I could get a blood clot from that leather constrictor you call a pair of pants." Sora gave him a gentle smile to counteract the slight acidity of his tone, knowing that in spite of how little he himself liked the article of clothing in particular, Riku had only been trying to please him. Maybe. Sora shook off the thoughts of the vampire's own agenda for choosing such tight, revealing, and overtly sexy clothes and said, "But if you promise to cut me out of them as soon as I say I can't feel my feet anymore, I'll give them a try. Once. In private."

"It'll be fun," Riku told him, his eyes widened with zeal.

Sora snorted and furrowed his brow, annoyed that Riku was turning his attempt at keeping the vampire from feeling bad into some positive experience, as if he _actually_ wanted to do it. "No, it won't be. It's stupid. God, I don't even know how you're supposed to clean those things. You can't just wash them, right? That's so impractical! And you'll have to freakin' rub me up in oil just to fit into them--"

"Oh ho! I'm so glad I tossed that receipt first chance."

"Do you have to be such an asshole about it?" the brunet said exasperatedly, finally irritated past his limit. "You know that I'm already uncomfortable about it all, and I'm just trying to do something for you even though it's not something I like at all, since you went through the trouble, so you can at least be considerate of that." His indignation was finally able to fizzle out after getting all of that off of his chest, and he waited and watched Riku and hoped he had made his point without making him feel too bad.

The vampire pressed his lips together and bowed his head down, as if asking for forgiveness. "I know. Sorry. Feel free to hit me when I start being obtuse."

"I don't want to hit you," Sora sighed at last. "Just… know when to stop, okay?"

"Can you tell me when? Because I have a hard time keeping quiet about things that are important to me."

The Slayer huffed. "Clothes are that important to you?"

"When they're in reference to you, they are."

"I appreciate the thought," Sora said delicately, "and the time and money you spent. Especially the money. Don't spend so much of it on me," he amended, his eyes fluttering as he remembered the outrageous prices listed on the tags of his new clothing. "Except for, like, weapons. Those don't come cheap. You can splurge on a good set of hunting knives. If you want," he added quickly, not wanting to seem demanding.

"Buying clothes, bad. Buying killing devices, good," the vampire summed up glumly, crossing his arms and staring at the Slayer with a look of resignation to those facts.

Riku's pout-- a power previously unknown to Sora-- was hard to witness without feeling a pang of guilt. "No, no, no," the brunet said with a wave. "I just want to be there to pick them out with you next time. When I'm not a shuffling mass of pain and raw skin, hopefully," he chuckled. Sora smiled and ruffled his hair out of habit as he searched for words. "But thanks for doing it for me this time. Even though it's totally not my style, I'll try on the fancy clothes for you. But I don't think I'll ever wear them," he shrugged, not knowing of a time in his recent life that he had needed a dress shirt or a fine coat. "I'll even give those whorish ones a shot, but you'd better not get your hopes up. Oh, but there are some lines I'm just not willing to cross, so you can forget about some of the clothes you picked out-- I wear belly shirts and fishnet for no one. And frankly, I'm a little disappointed. I thought you were classy."

"Really?"

"Classier than that," the teen amended.

"Sorry to disappoint. I just think you have a nice abdomen-- among other things-- and I wouldn't mind seeing more of it," he said plainly. "But I fully respect your decision and this compromise is most pleasing. I take it you'll keep the boots?"

"Those boots are awesome."

"The corset?"

"I thought those were for girls? It looks weird and uncomfortable. But kind of pretty… like as a wall decoration or something," he tried to suggest diplomatically.

"Fair enough. I'll just give it to Paine when we see her next," Riku said with a shrug. "What about the--"

"Wait," Sora interrupted, looking confused as he tried to place that name. "Paine?" It sounded familiar.

"My cousin," the vampire explained as he rounded the counter with a basket of laundry and began folding. "She's in one of the books that I gave… ah, right. Her dame, Lulu, and Leon were sired by the same vampire, so they're related like me, Roxas, and Demyx are related. Sibling-ish. Paine is Lulu's vampiric offspring. So, by our lineage keeping, we're cousins."

"You said, 'when _we_ see her'," Sora reminded him. "But you meant the rest of you, right? Please tell me she's not dropping in tonight or something. I can't handle a surprise visit."

"Of course not," Riku chuckled lowly as he stacked jeans and slacks, all perfectly folded. "That would be a disaster. But eventually, you know. It's inevitable. I mean, by the time the family reunion rolls around they'll all know anyway, probably, and I can't abandon Leon and Roxas and expect them to deal with all of them on our behalf. That's why it's important that you have some nice outfits-- first impressions need to be good."

"Won't they, uh, be upset? At me and you?"

"Oh, definitely. Leon's already coming up with contingency plans, and we'll have to find some really good, easily hidden weapons just in case-- to escape, not kill, of course. But, depending on how things go with the Palliata, the family reunion could be a non-issue."

"Oh, really?"

"Well… if you kill all of the Palliata, or even just a few of them, everyone will be too scared to even say anything bad about you-- much less attack you," he said brightly. "Except for Sephiroth. But he might not even come. Sort of a recluse now."

"Great. So all I have to do to win over your family is to slaughter a handful of the most powerful leaders in vampire society. Y'know, I think you're really getting off easy in terms of in-laws, here. I have none. You have, like, twenty or thirty and they all hate me without even meeting me and have ridiculously high terms of acceptance. This is so not fair."

"'Acceptance'? Dare to dream. I'm just hoping you'll establish yourself enough that they don't all try to swarm you, or that great uncle Mateus doesn't try to abduct you and _stuff_, or that Sephiroth doesn't look at you the wrong way and kill you."

"Can he do that? With a look?"

"Maybe," Riku said with a shrug. "We hear a lot of weird, scary things about the really _old_ relatives. It's hard to know what's all true. Except with Kefka. Everything that everyone says about him is true. He's awful and scary even by our less-than-wholesome standards. Stay away from him."

"It's not like I was planning on seeking him out. _Any_ of them." He plunked his chin down on the palm of his head and sighed. "Oh boy. It never ends, does it?"

"Not for the Slayer. Not for you," the vampire whispered, leaning in and touching his nose against the teen's.

"Remind me why I go through all of this?" Sora groaned. "Bec--mmph…"

The teen moaned into Riku's mouth as the vampire kissed him, precise and determined and with enough experience to counter and minimize Sora's sloppy overuse of tongue. He only let the boy go when he could sense that air was becoming an absolute must, and then watched in satisfaction as the brunet panted and blushed and licked his reddened lips distractedly.

"Oh, yeah. That's why," the Slayer murmured to himself before dizzily shuffling off to the bathroom to splash his face with cold water and get his racing heart under control before any of the other vampires made their appearance.

* * *

"Oh, yes! This is your first family meeting!"

Sora nodded shakily at Demyx's frighteningly wide eyes and maniacally gleeful smile. "I'm… very excited, too." Unsure of what else to say, he quickly held his macaroni and cheese up to his face and scooped it directly from the bowl into his mouth. He shrugged as he worked to chew the mouthful of noodles.

"You can sit next to me!" the youngest vampire squeaked cheerfully, not at all fazed, patting the space on the chair beside him and beckoning the brunet over. "So if you have any questions, you can totally just lean over and ask. I can fill you in on _anything_."

"Alright," Leon said as he strode into the living room and came to stand in front of the TV, which Roxas hurried to mute, his thumb punching through the hard plastic in his rush, forcing him to get up and dart behind their sire to carefully turn off the television set instead.

Leon waited for the blonde to settle back down on the armchair before going on. "I've got bad news and possibly-good news. The bad news is that someone from the Palliata is coming to do a little inspection of us. The potential good here is that--"

"Oh no," Demyx cried, his lower lip already jutting out and quivering. "Don't tell me it's--"

"Xigbar," Leon said with a nod. "And he sent me an email earlier today and specifically asked if _you_ were going to be here."

"Who's that?" Sora shoved a forkful of macaroni into his mouth and chewed as he waited for a response from the despondent looking vampire that had pledged to answer all of his questions.

"Xigbar looks scary," Demyx started in a whine, "and he stares at me funny. I don't like it."

"He's one of the Palliata, and he's expressed… quite a bit of interest in Demyx in the past. But he's more reasonable than most of them, so we're all just going to be calm. Right, Demyx?" Leon vampire asked as he cast a questioning glance at the nervously fidgeting vampire, who was shaking his head nonstop. "Alright… then I guess I need to go call Lulu."

Roxas waited until Leon had left the room and was out of hearing range before whipping around to face the youngest of the vampire trio. "You know that if it comes down to it, you need to seduce Xigbar into getting the Palliata off of our backs, right?"

"What?"

"It's called taking one for the team. You like teamwork and unity and cooperation and stuff."

"But I already have a boyfriend!" the younger vampire protested. "And Xigbar is not at _all_ what I'm attracted to!" He shuddered, thinking of the last time that he'd seen the much older, much more grizzled vampire.

"Relax, Demyx," Riku interrupted, stepping smoothly between the two. "No one expects you to sleep with Xigbar or anything like that. But a little smiling and playing coy isn't going to hurt anyone, right?" he wheedled.

"I… I guess not? But that still seems wrong to Zexion," Demyx said reluctantly.

Riku and Roxas glanced at each other and seemed to be forging a plan telepathically, each scarily thoughtful, and then the two simultaneously turned their stares to Demyx, who cowered.

"Maybe something good could come out of all of this," Roxas started with a honey-sweet smile, turning on exactly the charm that got him so many easy kills.

"Like what?"

Riku's bright-eyed smile was almost as disturbing to Sora as Roxas' was. "Like your boyfriend Zecky--"

"Zexy," the sitarist corrected.

"--_Zexy_ coming here for a little visit, huh?"

"Really? Then you guys could meet him!" the youngest vampire almost shrieked. But he sobered instantly and added, "But that'd be too expensive. You both know that Leon put a limit on my card after the aquarium thing…"

"Which is exactly why _we_ would pay for it," Roxas explained. "The plane," he started.

"His food," Riku added.

"Some cash for activities," the blonde continued, knowing that nothing piqued the young vampire's interests more than arts, crafts, and fun diversions.

"The hotel, if you two want one for a little privacy," Riku finished persuasively.

"The kind with room service?" Demyx asked excitedly, his shining eyes showing the inner joy that was bubbling over.

"The kind with room service," his brothers chimed.

"We'll even make sure that he can take off of work or school or whatever he does," Roxas added. "We won't let anything stop him from coming here. _Anything_."

"Cool," the youngest of the vampires murmured, somewhat awed by the other two. "Okay, then. I mean, I'll have to deal with Xigbar anyway since he's coming… I might as well get something awesome out of it, right?"

At their animated nods, the mohawked vampire drummed on the countertop excitedly and then took off to his room, undoubtedly to call Zexion and share the great news, sans the condition of him playing up to an old, scary vampire.

"You two are so devious," Sora commented as he scraped his plate for the last bits of cheese sauce. "Politicians wish they were half as good as you."

Riku and Roxas both grinned, although Riku did a better job of looking at least a little abashed about it all. "Must be the demon in us," the blonde said with a slight shrug.

"That'll do it," the brunet agreed with a nod.

Roxas immediately fled to his room to begin the preparations (and probably to call Axel, Sora figured with a wry little smile to himself, having become aware of exactly _how much_ the blonde vampire talked to the redhead-- four calls a night, sometimes, and never shorter than ten minutes).

"Holy cow, Axel must be a smitten kitten. He would always hang up on _me_ if I talked more than five minutes while he was working, but he'll listen to Roxas go on about some houndstooth jacket he saw online for practically forever? He must have bought one of those little headset things, because there's no way he can get anything done with Roxas calling him all the time on a regular phone."

"You sound a little bit jealous there, Slayer. And why are you eavesdropping in the first place?" Riku asked with a grin, knowing it would make the Slayer groan and huff and give him one of those looks.

"I'm not! You know I'm not jealous or trying to spy," the brunet complained. "How can I not listen when he leaves the door open and giggles and shit the whole time."

"Grumpy, grumpy."

"You try listening to someone make grossly suggestive comments to your best friend over the phone and not getting a little disgruntled over it."

"And to think, there was once a time when Roxas would actually blush and stammer and clam up any time that anyone even remotely mentioned sex. Oh, the better, purer times of the past…"

"I don't believe it for a second."

"What? You think that a hundred years as a vampire doesn't change someone? Roxas, even when I first met him, which was years after he was turned, was totally different than he was fifty years ago, or even five. Sure, the killing and stuff came naturally, but he was still repressed and prim and hell when it came to anything that resembled sexual acts. That wore off eventually…"

"I can tell," the teen snorted, shaking his head as he recalled some of the bawdier things he'd overheard Roxas and Axel talking about.

"Mmm," Riku agreed, stepping closer to the back of the couch where Sora still sat and bending over to nuzzle the side of the boy's neck and jaw, his lips skimming the warm area below his ear and then gently catching the lobe between his lips and humming. "Are _you_ going to blush and clam up?" he asked in a whisper, his cool breath hitting the shell of the teen's ear and making him shiver.

"How can I be shy around you anymore?" the Slayer chided, although still a little nervous in reality, as he put his arms around the vampire's neck and tugged him further over the back of the couch, over the barrier between them. "You've seen me in every messed up, disarrayed, sick and bloody state I've gotten in within the last few months. You've seen me embarrass myself more times than I can count. And you already know what you do to me," he added huskily. "But more importantly, all of that applies to you, too."

Riku chuckled at that, murmuring his agreement, and then burst out into full laughter as the spirited young Slayer finally succeeded in hauling him completely over the back of the couch, the momentum rolling them both onto the floor in a tangled heap; and it was only the vampire's exceptional capacity for level thinking even in times of frenzy that got them both to the bedroom, though the short journey was frequently punctuated by grasping and stumbling and frantic kisses and staying on track was a challenge.

Though the lights were out and the room was completely dark, the two could see every outline and plane and indention in their flesh-- their clothes having been thrown off or torn from their bodies as soon as they were safely inside, littering the floor and marking their path to the bed.

Sora tensed in pleasant anticipation as the vampire scooped his hands around the back of his thighs and pulled the teen's smaller, intensely burning body up onto his lap. The rush of fluttering, beating excitement that coursed right through him, briefly filling his chest almost to bursting, made his breath catch and shake as he exhaled, and he smiled without noticing.

"You feel nice," he murmured softly as he leaned in to press his lips against the shell of the vampire's ear, his face heating as he found himself running his hands appreciatively-- and almost uncontrollably-- up those cool arms and across strong shoulders.

"A while ago, I decided to start sitting in front of the heater for about an hour before any time you were supposed to come over, just in case," Riku admitted as he set to delicately rubbing the brunet's hips. He slowly worked his way inward, thumbs occasionally stretching up to touch the Slayer's navel and dipping down to follow the barely-there trail of cinnamon brown hair that began just below it. "It doesn't last very long, but I try to do it whenever I think we'll end up close. I've noticed I tend to gravitate toward the heat vents whenever they come on now."

The Slayer couldn't help but bury his face in the crook of the man's neck and giggle at the thought of his preparations to warm himself, though he was touched and, at the moment, quite turned on. He sat up straight and found the vampire's mouth with his own, covering it-- and the rest of the vicinity, as his eyes were lightly closed and he wasn't very experienced at blindly kissing-- with short, wet kisses.

"You're going to do all of the work… right?" he said with a slight gasp as they parted.

Riku wound his fingers with Sora's and gave the boy's hands a comforting squeeze. "If you need help, sure, but I actually thought it might be better for you to have more control on the first time-- it is, right? The first?" He was almost positive already, given the Slayer's undeniable lack of experience with even kissing, but found no harm in making sure.

"… Yeah--"

A soft chuckle filled the mostly silent room. "So obvious--"

"Alright, not now," Sora hissed. "You can make fun of my being a virgin later." He paused. "Oh wait. You won't be able to, will you?" He grinned and dug his fingers into silvery hair, massaging the back of the man's head and neck.

"A sacrifice worth making," Riku answered softly, brushing his lips against the teen's smirk. He slowly nuzzled and sucked at the boy's jaw, always careful not to touch the scarred and still tender area of his neck; his hands searched the brunet's chest, slowly and surely stroking up and down his strong back and delicate sides, then sweeping across his narrower chest, pausing to test and caress the most sensitive points, earning him a favorable reaction from his partner.

In all of this, Sora gathered his thoughts to determine what to do next, how to make certain that Riku received as much attention as he was devoting to him. He pieced together the fragments of his limited sexual knowledge-- gathered mostly from what he'd overheard at school and from Axel, the few things he'd seen on forays into the underbelly of the internet, and what he knew worked for himself-- and sought the vampire's hardened member with tentative, searching fingers, grasping it and clearing his throat.

"Um, should I? Do you want me to? I mean, uh… you like this, right?" Sora added lowly, squinting his eyes and speaking in a husky, grating voice.

The vampire was panting, and Sora could see his nostrils flaring, probably taking in as of much his smell-- and their combined scent of sweat and arousal-- as possible. Luminescent eyes were trained onto his own, barely blinking in the darkness. "Please don't try and be sexy, Sora. You do such a good job of it on your own."

"I do? Really?" the brunet asked with a surprised and pleased smile, sitting up straight and cocking his head at the unexpected piece of praise.

"Of course you do. I thought you said that before-- 'you already know what you do to me'," he said, unthinkingly licking his lips. "Don't you know? And I do think it might make it warmer… more comfortable for you."

The teen blushed deeply yet found himself consumed by the electrifying thrill of being so close to _his_ vampire, of seeing him yearning, of knowing of his own overwhelming desire, the heady feeling spurring him forward in spite of his doubts and fears over his inexperience in intimacy. Sora bent forward and took the tip of Riku's erection into his mouth before looking toward the vampire for a nudge in the right direction. But his lover's eyes were shut blissfully and, newly encouraged, the brunet teased and tasted freely. He paid extra attention to the places that were the most sensitive-- kissing and licking and sucking the head and the slit and the soft skin at the base, spreading warm saliva everywhere.

He grunted when Riku pulled him back up, murmuring something that the teen couldn't quite catch over his own harsh breathing, and then broke into a snorting laugh when the vampire accidentally poured a hefty measure of lubricating oil onto his chest, cursing under his breath as he also managed to coat his hands and the bottle in the oily fluid, making it nearly impossible to keep a grip on.

Sora watched him hopelessly fumble with the thing for a few more seconds before the vampire finally growled and slapped the slippery bottle away, realizing that the pool that had formed on his stomach and the coating on his hands was probably enough anyway.

"Doesn't feel very warm to me," the Slayer mumbled as he dabbed at the oil that had run down the bone-white chest, squinting at the discarded bottle. "'Warm sensations', huh?"

"Anything to make this less… shocking. It should warm up for you," Riku said as they moved closer together and settled into an awkward sort of embrace, as the vampire whispered explanations and warnings and comforting words into the boy's ear and slowly slipped one oiled finger in and waited until Sora was ready for a second and then a third, the teen signaling his readiness for each with a nod.

When the brunet finally felt prepared, the discomfort and slight pain dying down and the touch bringing pleasure more than anything else, he whispered so to Riku, who quickly covered himself in the same lubricant and laid back, letting the boy straddle him, his pale hands guiding the slender hips to the right position.

"I don't… I'm sort of, um, scared. I don't know what the hell I'm doing, Riku." Sora's eyes, still distractingly beautiful and impossible to avoid staring at even in the utter dark, were a little unsure, and Riku sat up straight, pulling the brunet into an urgent open-mouthed kiss, their noses rubbing and bumping and Sora excitedly (and accidentally) biting down on his boyfriend's lip or tongue more than once.

"The important thing," the vampire said with a slight groan as he settled down on the bed again, "is to be relaxed. And you'll enjoy it." He smiled and reassuringly trailed the back of a finger over one of the boy's flushed cheeks.

As the Slayer took a few deep breaths to calm himself and ease his nerves, he felt cool hands traveling up and down his sides and thighs, occasionally pausing to rub and squeeze the tense muscles. He chuckled quietly every time Riku passed over a ticklish spot.

"Feel better now?"

Sora smiled and made a low 'mmm' noise, reaching behind to find the vampire's member and-- with one last shuddering breath and the help of Riku's hand over his own for guidance-- lowered his hips onto it just enough that the tip entered. He let out a breathy gasp as he slowly settled down on Riku's lap, jolting up a little as he felt the vampire slide all the way inside. He inhaled deeply a few times and then asked, "D-don't you feel awkward?"

"No, all I can think about is you and how much I want you," the vampire admitted, not thinking it the time or place to add that he had not been embarrassed by sex for a long time, although this was giving him the buzz of excitement and slight nervousness that he hadn't known in a long while.

"I-I love you. I'm pretty sure," Sora gasped quickly, his grin abruptly turning into a tense grimace as the first movements caused tinges of pain and the unfamiliar sensation made him go rigid. It was a few uneasy moments for both before the ache subsided and neither felt the need to stay stock-still.

"Me too," Riku assured him as he slowly sat up to meet the brunet in a short kiss. "Tell me what you want," he instructed in a low whisper as he began to gently rock his hips underneath the brunet while taking the teen's erection in hand and stroking it.

Sora's head rolled back and he shut his eyes, feeling his body open up and relax and the swell of growing pleasure. He found it impossible to keep the tiny, quiet sounds of his ecstasy from escaping. "That. More of that."

Riku sped up and slowed down and adjusted as per every one of Sora's hushed commands and pleas, even lying still to let the teen command the tempo and feel when he wanted to, although the vampire did take some liberties as they both came closer to peaking and slowed just enough to draw out the experience. However, the vampire could only subdue his own passion for a short while longer, the steady rhythm of their movement gradually giving way to a frantic pace and desperate clinging and pressing and pushing. Their cries grew more harried and nonsensical as they climaxed, with Riku coming just a short while after the brunet and both laying tangled on top of the sheets as Sora tried to recover his breath and slow his racing heart while Riku listened to its hypnotic beating and resisted the urge to lick and kiss every inch of his lover's glistening, aromatic skin and start them both up all over again.

The constant, slowing thrum of Sora's heart eventually induced calm in the vampire, though, and Riku's cool and rhythmic stroking of the Slayer's abdomen relaxed the teen in turn, the exertion giving way to a hazy, sleepy sort of satisfaction.

"You don't have any weird fetishes, do you?" the brunet asked suddenly, fiddling with the edge of a twisted sheet.

"I think 'getting it on with a Slayer' counts as a fetish for vampires. And a bizarre one at that. And then there's the blood thing… But technically _you_ enjoy having sex with a dead guy, so..."

"And you're seeing someone a couple hundred years younger than you, old man. A teenager to boot. A little ephebophilia going on, maybe?"

"The point of this?" the vampire asked, one eyebrow cocked disgruntledly as he internally debated whether or not to swat the brunet for calling him an old man (the other insinuation bothered him, too, but nothing stings like being called 'old', even if it's true). He decided against it, worried that it would make him seem crotchety… just like an old man would be.

"Just reaffirming to myself that we're both weird and messed up and I have nothing to be embarrassed of in this relationship. And to make sure you aren't into anything, like, disgusting. You know what I mean. I know you've seen the internet."

"I have no idea what you're talking about. You're perverted," the vampire said flatly as he rolled over onto his side with his back facing the Slayer, smiling as the chuckling teen pinched him hard on his side and then tried to spoon him, significant difference in size be damned.

* * *

Sora groaned and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms, trying to wake up. He hadn't planned on falling asleep in the first place, and the warm, cloudy haze of slumber was still so heavy that he couldn't determine how long he'd been under, whether it was still night or had turned to day, or much else.

He _did_ feel Riku next to him, his perfectly still body comfortably warm from absorbing the teen's heat as they slept, and the boy slithered up beside him, pressing close and casting an arm and a leg over the sleeping vampire. Sora felt him awaken in response, his chest suddenly taking in air and his eyes fluttering open sleepily.

"You woke up before me?" Riku questioned dazedly as he began slowly stretching out his limbs-- at least as much as Sora's constriction would allow.

"Yeah. What time is it?"

"Don't know. Don't care," the vampire whispered. "Not ready to get out of bed anyway. Unless you're hungry?"

"No, I'm fine." Sora pulled his limbs away from his silver-haired lover and rolled onto his back, eyes shut blissfully. He could feel a few scratches and bruises on his arms and back, as well as a slight soreness that served to remind him of what they'd just done. He had seen that Riku had his fair share of scrapes from fingernails and hand-shaped bruises and love-bites also. He hoped that they both healed up in the next few hours; there was a particularly large and vividly red hickey-bite combo left on the side of the vampire's neck that Sora couldn't even remember making, but it was there in a big way, and he was certain that he would be utterly mortified if the rest of the vampire family saw it.

A hand as pale as alabaster reached over to skim up his abdomen and over his chest, leading the brunet to crack open one eye, and eventually coming across the sliver chain that he wore and following it to find the crown-shaped pendant that had slipped around to the back of the boy's neck. Riku gazed down at the immaculate silver as he turned it over in his hand, his thumb delicately brushing the smooth metal surface and the pointed tips and sharp edges.

"This is nice," he breathed, jiggling the chain slightly to let the Slayer know what he was referring to.

The teen craned his neck to look over at the vampire and grinned. "Isn't it? I got it from my parents. It's a family heirloom. Some great-great aunt brought it over with her from wherever, and we took it to an antique dealer who said it's like two hundred years old. That's almost as old as you!"

Riku grumbled under his breath before gently laying the pendant back down on the Slayer's body and admiring it there.

"This and a couple of knives are all I was able to keep," Sora told him with a downtrodden pout. "And my watch, I guess, but apparently that wasn't waterproof," he said lamentingly as he glanced over to the desk where his waterlogged and nonfunctional watch now lay.

"We'll replace what we can, and start over with the rest," Riku whispered back. He took the teen's head between his hands and added, "At least you're alright."

"I know. I know it's stupid to be so upset over a bunch of stuff, but…" He leaned into one of the vampire's hands and let his eyes fall shut. "Anyway, it's hard to be _too_ bummed right now, with you," he said, smiling.

"It's not stupid, but, yeah, I don't want you despondent over what's already been lost. I'll keep you happy. I promise. No matter what else goes away."

"I wish… this is perfect right now. I wish it was always like this. No Palliata looming over us, no assassins, no slaying, no immortality and death, nothing. Just us. And occasionally friends and family. But only the family that doesn't want to kill me. Other than that, us."

The vampire chuckled quietly, meeting the sweet, clear blue of Sora's eyes and letting them distract him from the underlying worry of all that the boy said. "We're going to get through all of this. There's just no other way to look at it."

He sighed as the Slayer reached up to brush his pale hair away from his face and tucked it behind his ear, so slowly and tenderly that it was all the vampire could do to keep from pulling the boy against him and kissing him and never letting him go.

"I would break the necks of a hundred turok-han if it meant keeping you safe," the brunet said suddenly, all at once serious and morose and honestly, brightly humorous.

"Will you make me a Valentine's card that says that? Assuming we make it to then?" Riku asked with a throaty laugh as he wound his arms around the teen and hugged him close.

"Of course. I'll make you a whole series of them. Maybe I can market a set of 'For Slayers and their Vampires' cards to Hallmark. 'I would slay insurmountable evil in your name… if you'd be my Valentine'," he chuckled. "And I'll have to start working on them soon to get them done in time, because I'm going to make _sure_ we make it until then."

* * *

"Should I hide?" Sora asked anxiously, his hands clasped tightly together as he glanced toward the door, ready to bolt at the next knock. He grimaced and peered up at Leon questioningly.

"They know you're here. They know we're involved with you. There's really no way to deny it now. At least we can hopefully explain this away with Xigbar, though. He's not quite like the others," Leon said in way of explanation as he headed toward the door and gave the rest of his family one last look before pulling it open and welcoming the vampire standing in the doorway.

He entered in a flourish, his arms open wide and his scarred face twisted by a wide grin. "Leon! How you been?"

"Fine, given the circumstances," the brunet vampire replied as he shook the visitor's hand. "And you, Xigbar?"

"Same. And well, well-- if it isn't the Slayer himself here to welcome me!" The scarred vampire tilted his head back a little and laughed deeply, although his one golden eye never left the teen. "You're a tiny thing, aren't you? In my day, Slayers were bigger. Friggin' hulks, you know? But you just get smaller and smaller now. Heh, I still don't get why none of you recent Slayers have gotten on the juice and whatnot. Seems like common sense, right? Good enough for the big leagues, good enough for you!"

After a moment's pause, Sora blurted out, "Testicular shrinkage" as way of an answer, though he couldn't explain why that had to be his instinctual response, his own eyes widening considerably as the words left his mouth and the shocked expression of Roxas-- jaw open and one eye slightly squinted-- mirrored his own pretty well.

Xigbar stared at him for a moment, repeating the words under his breath for a moment, before bursting out. "Testi-- oh, ah hahaha! Yeah, kiddo. Gotta look out for those family jewels, right?" He took a moment to adjust his eyepatch and then grew more serious. "Well, let's get down to business, shall we? I just need to know exactly what's going on here."

"Maybe we should sit down," Leon suggested, nodding toward the living room chairs. He offered Xigbar a place in the dark leather armchair that he usually sat in, and then he and Roxas settled on the sofa while Riku and Sora wound up on the loveseat.

"Alright. We've seen enough evidence so far to know that there's at least something unusual going on here between the two of you," he stated, crossing his legs as he settled into the chair and gave the two on the loveseat an examining look. "I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that you two are involved at this point. Beyond the point of no return. We can't just separate the two of you and pretend it never happened."

"Correct," Riku answered promptly, his hands clasped and resting business-like on his lap as he calmly and coolly surveyed his interrogator.

"And is that what this is?" the vampire asked carefully, with honest curiosity and even fascination, his single eye squinting. "A romantic relationship?"

"Y-yes," Sora stuttered nervously, his palms already itching and sweating from the questioning. It was like being in school and getting quizzed after missing the last two classes of material, except a dozen times worse.

"No convenient side-plots about, say, creating a vampire-Slayer and ousting the Palliata?"

"W-what? No, of course not. I mean, I don't want to be a vampire, and I know my limitations, and I don't even see how that would do me any good in the first place… except for now with the assassins and stuff, but that's all I want to get rid of."

"Relax, kiddo." Xigbar crossed his legs and spread his arms out along the back of the couch. "I believe you. You don't look like the conniving type, and this lot is in it too deep to hatch some crazy scheme anyway. I just have to ask."

"He ordered you to ask that in particular? Is that all he's worried about?" Leon questioned in his low, emotionless voice, one hand at his chin and a finger poised over his lip.

"Heh, you know Xemnas-- if a pigeon shits on him, it's part of a massive bird conspiracy to make him slip and fall, you know? He hears about some of Sephiroth's descendants getting a Slayer on their side, maybe getting a little too close, and then some stuff about werewolves, and he gets scared that it's all to overthrow him. Or, like, the entire Palliata and you seizing control for yourself, but between us, it's about _him_. He couldn't care less about the rest of us."

"That's the last thing on our minds," Roxas said softly. "There are no intentions here to do anything like that. Even Sephiroth left the Palliata alone! Why would we do something that he chose not to, being even less influential and powerful than he was. Even with a Slayer-- a young, grossly untrained one-- we couldn't hope to fight the Palliata."

"For someone so _grossly untrained_," the vampire drawled, his eye settling on the Slayer, "he seems to be doing pretty well. How many assassins of ours have you killed? Hell, you slipped past the Turok-han-- hence my orders to visit you in person. That's impressive. We're having a hard time killing you."

Roxas gulped quietly.

"I've gotten a lot of outside help. I mean, I have a friend that knows weapons dealers and magic stuff. A-and Riku, once we got close, we hung out together, and when we got attacked, he helped me, but he didn't really have a choice, since he was in danger, too, but that helped save my skin," the Slayer explained, albeit with less firmness and cohesion than he would have liked. "I've gotten stronger and I know I can fight, and even if I wasn't capable I'd still have to, but… I wouldn't be here right now if it weren't for all of their efforts."

"So now it's conspiring to aid the Slayer?" Xigbar said with a smirk as the other vampires looked around guiltily. "Hey, you guys know you've made some violations. It's not news to anyone here. But that's a laugh compared to the accusations Xemnas is concerned with, so, anyway, what we're all a little confused about is… why _you_, Riku? You're a Slayer killer. You come from a good line and a good family. You're not some human-loving radical."

"It's complicated," Riku explained after a short pause, wringing his pale hands. "I guess after so many hours spent watching and thinking about the Slayer-- even though it was to try and kill him-- all of it caught up with me. I started to, uh, see him differently. I wanted to have him, but not as a victim or kill anymore. It was more of a shift of passion from one direction to another is all. It's not like I'm attracted to Slayers, or humans in general. I think that much is obvious from my past," the vampire said with a smile.

The Palliata vampire smiled back and gave him a nod. "Attraction is a hard thing to control," he agreed, his gaze flitting down the hallway for a moment. "I'd hate to see you disciplined and made an example of, like…" Xigbar seemed to sense the mood of the room and refrained from speaking Leon's name or looking at him directly, but his intended comparison was clear to the vampires. "You know Xemnas has a penchant for picking on nobles to keep the lesser vampires scared shitless of what would happen to _them_ if they did the same. Anyway, it looks like Fortune and Love have just been real shitty to you, huh?"

"I don't think so."

Dark grey eyebrows rose, impressed and surprised. "Well, there's an answer if I'll ever get one," he murmured as he rose up from the couch.

"Leaving so soon?" Leon asked hastily as he stood as well.

"'Fraid so. Xemnas was freaking persistent about needing me to report in immediately with my findings."

"That's too bad, because I think Demyx had something planned," Roxas said with a diligently thoughtful expression plastered on.

"_Really_?"

Sora felt his stomach spin a little with guilt and worry as he saw the Palliata vampire's total change in demeanor at Demyx's mention. Something about the whole situation screamed 'lamb to the slaughter' to the brunet, and he didn't want the sweet-hearted vampire doing anything regrettable or unwanted for him, and if that meant earning Xigbar's wrath-- and therefore the whole organization's-- then so be it.

Sora suddenly felt a pressure on his wrist and looked down to find Riku's hand wrapped around it, holding him still. The vampire leaned in just enough and whispered so faintly that is was barely audible even to Sora, "Let him go. Don't underestimate him."

Sora's brow creased as he struggled with those words and his frown deepened as he internally debated what to do, but he ultimately stayed silent as Demyx-- dressed in cleaner, flashier clothes than he normally wore-- grinned and led the rapt older vampire out the door, only pausing to wave back at his family.

Riku only waited a beat before turning to Sora and saying, "I know he might seem a little airy in the head at times, but Demyx is no fool. He can take care of himself. Roxas and I would never send him off if we didn't know he could handle it."

"You're positive that he can stand up to that guy? That Xigbar won't try and take advantage of him?" the brunet asked skeptically, his eyes flashing with concern and anger.

"Trust me. If Xigbar tried anything, I would be more worried for his welfare than Demyx's. Pacifist or not, when he's pushed to the edge, Demyx is a force to be reckoned with."

"I find that hard to believe."

"I'd try to prove it to you, but it's nearly impossible to goad him into a fight," Riku said with a shrug. "He's actually abnormally good at magic, as far as vampires go, and not bad in terms of agility or sheer self-preservation, either. Roxas and I figure it's some kind of divine compensation for his lacking in other areas."

"Like common sense," Roxas chipped in from across the room, as though his senses tingled whenever an opportunity to mock the youngest sibling arose and drew him to the conversation with potential. "But he really is ridiculously good at fighting, which makes it even stranger for him to be so averse to it. Anyway, now that he's gone, you're going to help me clean his room."

"What?" Riku asked with a laugh. "No."

"_You_ don't have to share a wall with him. You're on the opposite side of the hall. Something in his room smells like sprouting beans, and the stench is seeping into mine. And I don't know if you've looked in there lately, but that mess is more than a one-man job."

"We'll help," Sora told the blonde, ignoring his boyfriend's halfhearted protests and exaggerated sighs, laughing with the blonde as they both dragged Riku down the hall with them.

* * *

"So? How did it go?"

"What, the concert?"

"Yes, Demyx. How were they live? Did you pick up any good merchandise?" Roxas asked with a sneer before continuing on impatiently. "Like we care about that! What happened with Xigbar?"

"Oh. He said that he didn't see any reason in interfering with young love, and something about blossoms unfolding when you least expect it? And he bought me this awesome t-shirt, but it's like a size too small," he said with a frown. "I told him my size, too. Maybe he didn't remember."

"That's all he said?"

"No… he said that he was going to try and downplay everything to Xemnas because he doesn't want to get ordered around on a bunch of stupid missions about some backwoods Slayer--"

"Hey," Sora interjected, offended and a little angry at his dismissal.

"--and the drama of some horny spring chickens, regardless of how 'noble' the bloodline is, and because he's smart enough to not piss off anyone directly related to Sephiroth. But," the mowhawked vampire added reluctantly, "he says that he can't guarantee that Xemnas will listen to the voice of reason, or that the rest of the Palliata isn't out for blood. Apparently Vexen is interested in experimenting on the Slayer with some new projects he's got going, Larxene just wants to torture you-- go figure," he added darkly, pursing his lips as he thought of his least favourite of the group of distinguished vampires, "and Saix will do anything that Xemnas so much as suggests, so if he's upset at all there's the chance of Saix acting out on it for him."

"So at least the rest aren't so much of an issue," Roxas said thoughtfully. "Just the three, and Xemnas himself. I take it the other Palliata members aren't as ragingly upset as he is?"

"Well, Xigbar made it sound like most of them aren't really aware of the full extent of your, uh, relationship or want to take a more passive approach," he explained, looking shyly and the Slayer and his brother. "He says Lexaeus has basically gone into a sort of sensory deprivation where he sits around like a rock and meditates all the time, Marluxia is too busy hatching his own plots to care about you-- although if he does get wind of the whole story, he might just try to find you and enlist you in one of his own coup attempts-- and Xaldin has taken on a stance of waiting and watching rather than actively trying to scout you out or kill you. Which is good for us. And Leon's not concerned with any of the lesser members, and Xigbar said he'd contact us if he got wind of anything pertaining to us."

"Creepy guy, but not so bad," Sora said with a shrug. "My head hurts from all of this, though. Now I'm scared of that Marshmellow coming to make me an accomplice, and Vixen cutting me up and putting me into petri dishes," the teen.

"It's 'Marluxia' and 'Vexen', but… do you want to step out for some air? Help your head?"

Sora was about to protest and ask if the vampire was crazy, opening the windows on the top floor of the building to 'step out', when he saw that there was a narrow balcony. "Oh. You know, I always wondered what that was from outside on the ground. I thought it was some kind of perch you'd had put in, I guess."

"Because we perch like birds at the top of buildings, do we?"

"You sure perched outside of my second-floor bedroom a whole lot. Besides, you said these were windows, so I didn't think there would be stuff on the other side." Sora was a little embarrassed, but he justified it by reminding himself that if the vampires hadn't covered all of the windows with thick fabric to block out the light, he'd have been able to see that there was a balcony, so it wasn't _totally_ his own blunder.

Riku squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to laugh at the brunet. "French windows. They're a kind of door, O Knowledgeable and Stabby One. We wouldn't have doors to nowhere, would we?"

Sora grunted and followed him out, curious.

They both stepped out onto the small space and Riku pulled the window shut behind them. The walls of the balcony were brick and concrete, and mercifully high-- nearly reaching the Slayer's chest-- so he could feel reasonably safe about not falling. Someone had even filled planters along the edge with vines and what smelled like jasmine. The cold, fast blowing air whistling by had a welcome numbing effect, letting Sora think of nothing but the temperature, the gentle wooshing sound, the sting of his eyes, and the dark, dark color of the nighttime sky.

"Did you mean what you said earlier?" Riku asked him suddenly, obviously just coming out of his own contemplation, which apparently hadn't been centered on the here and now like Sora's had been.

"What? About you helping me?" the teen asked in confusion, trying to even remember what all he'd said during that sweat-inducing conversation.

"No, about not wanting to ever be a… to be like one of us," he said just loud enough to be heard over the wind. "I mean, you _had_ to lie about that, or they would have gone berserk."

Sora's lips parted slightly as he sucked in a long breath and dropped his gaze to the ground. "I wasn't lying."

Riku stared at him unblinkingly for several moments before finally speaking. "Look, I know that as a Slayer, you have some natural aversions to vampires-- although I can't quite explain what happened with us--"

"You're an exception. To pretty much everything I used to think," Sora said with a tiny smile. "Your family, too. The immediate kind, at least."

"And I hope that shows you that you that it doesn't have to be some horrible fate!" the vampire exclaimed, worked up by the mere thought of his Slayer's life and death. He took a brief pause to collect himself again. "You could be stronger and not have to worry about being able to defend yourself, and once you were technically dead there would be a new Slayer to take over, and we really could be together all the time, like we were earlier." He grasped the teen's hand in his own and held it tightly. "Like you said! Like you wished."

"And spend the rest of my unlife being attacked by paranoid vampires that think I'm a threat, out to grab power, and worry that I'd go on uncontrollable killing sprees and do _exactly_ the kind of horrible things that I'm fighting against right now," Sora said urgently, meeting Riku's eyes whenever the vampire tried to avert his gaze. "I couldn't become a vampire in good conscience, knowing that I'd most likely go through a phase like that, if not just stay up that way forever. Never see the sunset again, never see myself change or age, never grow up… I _don't_ want to live forever, Riku, or even two hundred years, or any of that."

"H-how? How can you not?" Riku could hear his voice crack and briefly considered trying to clear his throat or take a few calming breaths to regain his composure, but he got the distinct feeling that neither of those things would work. He was too upset, and he could feel the emotion making his lip tremble and his eyes burn as they began to fill.

"I like being human. I don't want to alter myself like that. It's not me," the teen said with a sniff, the cold making his nose run. "I'm not scared of the next life, and I don't want to hide from the inevitable. I mean, I want to be here, and I want to be with you…"

"Just not forever," Riku finished bitterly. "I swear. Nine out of ten humans would jump at the chance to be immortal like us. I finally find someone that I want to spend the rest of my time here with, someone who's worth it, and he d-doesn't want to. He'd rather be mortal. And die far before his time, while I- I..."

Sora tried to listen with a sympathetic but straight face and as much repose as he could muster, but when he saw Riku cover his face and shudder, he couldn't keep the tears in. The teen flung his arms around the quietly shaking vampire and cried with him, needing to release all of the feelings of self-pity and sadness and injustice at their predicament.

It was minutes later that Sora could finally tell that he was running out of tears, had cried out all that he could; his head ached and his eyes stung harshly, but he felt less filled by all of the hopeless and heavy emotions of their talk, and he hoped that the other man felt the same. He lifted his head up from the soaked place on Riku's chest and looked up at the vampire, whose face was still marked by faint streaks of red that continued down his neck and chest and had probably wound up in Sora's hair.

"Are you alright?" the Slayer whispered, reaching up to wipe his palms across his lover's cheeks and use his thumbs to smear away the fresher tears underneath his reddened eyes.

Riku nodded and stifled a small sob as he pulled out of the brunet's embrace only to wind his arms around the boy and take him into one of his own. "I'm s-sorry. I didn't mean to bring all of this up. I shouldn't have mentioned it."

"We had to get it out in the air sometime," the teen said soothingly as he pressed up against Riku's front and let the larger body rock and hold him. A few more tears still managed to leak out, leaving another wet spot on the vampire's soft white shirt. "I… tried to avoid thinking about it for the longest time, but… inevitable. That seems to be the theme of everything now. It's probably best to focus on other things for the time being, though."

"I suppose you're right." He was quiet again as he buried his face in cinnamon spikes and lost himself in the boy's smell and presence. "I wonder what the others are going to do," he mumbled into the brunet's hair.

"I thought about asking Roxas when we were cooking, but I was scared he would ask about you and me. I didn't know what I would say." Sora buried his face in the vampire's chest and hugged him tighter before letting go and separating from the embrace of cold limbs and that reassuringly sturdy body. "We'll have to talk with them. Compare notes. Zexion's coming here, right?"

"Yeah. Probably not the greatest timing ever, but as soon as he and Demyx both got it in their brains, they both insisted it had to be now. He won't be staying with us, though."

"That's good. I wouldn't want him here if and when the Palliata decide to descend and attack for you treasonously getting with a Slayer and me conspiring to screw with the vampiric world order. Although you should probably be the one they're more concerned about, Mr. hey-you-could-be-a-badass-weapon-if-you-were-a-vamp-wanna-come-look-through-cursed-treasure-for-a-magic-weapon-with-me?"

"You sound a little upset," the vampire chuckled, still using the back of his hand and his sleeve to try and clean himself up.

"You lured me into a cave without so much as mentioning that the demon-- the terrifying, horrific demon-- residing there would try to kill us after you made small talk with it, so yes, still a little peeved about that. And all for some magic crown that you don't even know where to look for. Maybe it's hidden in a top-hat somewhere."

"A tophat?"

"Yeah, like stuck to the inside, so it looks like you're just wearing a regular old hat, but really you're wearing the crown that makes you a super vampire. Although I still don't really get why it's such a big, bad deal to the vamps…"

"Because it's unnatural. The Palliata says that no vampire should be able to do what it allows. Of course, as you've seen, pretty much anything that they don't like is due to fear of it being turned against them. And how does anyone even know what it does, really? No one has used it before, to my knowledge. Maybe it's just like all of the rumors we hear about Sephiroth being able to evaporate water with his eyes. Who knows what's true? I guess it doesn't matter anyway. What's the use in becoming truly invincible and living forever if you'll just be immortal and alone?" he asked the Slayer with a soft shrug, tilting his head to the side as he placed one hand on the side of the brunet's head, feeling the soft hair that was being ruffled by the wind and the warm, sun-kissed skin that was still marked by dried streaks.

Sora pressed his lips together tightly and put his hand over the vampire's, his thumb rubbing the icy, white skin in small circles. "Does it even exist in the first place? Maybe that depopulo demon was just pulling your leg."

"I would have thought so if I hadn't researched it fairly thoroughly. It seems like a farce, but I was actually able to track it to a monastery in Spain when I was still actively looking for it. They acquired it at least eighty years ago, but what they did with it between then and now is a mystery."

"It's not still at the monastery?" Sora questioned. "Or hidden somewhere? Can't you ask the monks? Just to settle it all once and for all?"

Riku's lip quirked up and he shook his head. "Sora, this thing… it's the Holy Grail for vampires. About ten years ago the Palliata caught wind of its location. The horde that came down on that monastery was of mythic proportions. Neither the building itself or any of the people who lived there are in existence today. But somehow, those monks spirited it away, because the Palliata never found it, and neither did anyone else."

"How do you know for sure that they didn't find it? That they didn't destroy it if it's so unnatural and evil?

"Silly… as if any vampire of the Palliata _wouldn't_ stake all of the others in the back for that thing. One or two might genuinely believe it's a power that shouldn't be in anyone's hands, but the rest only spout that belief. If they got their hands on it, you can be sure they'd use it on themselves."

"Doesn't seem like it's that great of a thing," Sora said with a tired sigh and a shrug. "I mean, it's a crown. It's perched right where it's an easy target. Someone knocks it off, and you're back to being vulnerable to sun and stakes like everyone else."

"Velcro was invented for a reason."

"I don't think that was it."

"If toddlers can wear it on their shoes, vampires can wear it on their heads," Riku told him blankly, although he cracked into a smile at the end when he caught Sora biting his lip to keep from laughing at him. "And I promise you, I'm just saying that. I didn't make myself a Velcro helmet."

"Yet," the teen finished for him, grinning mischievously as he opened up the door and beckoned Riku to follow him inside, the cold air finally having become too much for him.

"Go on. Just a few more minutes," he told the Slayer, who frowned and reluctantly shut the window, leaving Riku out on the balcony alone.

* * *

**Geez, can you tell how much I love writing dialogue? Even during a sex scene people are still talking each other's ears off. I tried, though, so I hope it was passable. I'd hoped to get this chapter and the next out sooner, but I've been getting slammed with papers and exams and pointless computer class things, so things are getting pushed back a little.**

**And it's crunch time! Yes, this wandering, crazy thing is finally going to reach a point soon. So please review! **


	14. Gravity

**Apparently the formatting of some of the chapters messed up at one point, like getting rid of dividers and (I think) changing alignment. I went back and added whatever I saw needed to be added to keep things clear and separate, but the little variations in appearance between chapters I just left, since I'm not sure what sticks anymore. I'm sorry if the lack of a cohesive look irritates anyone. Typos might lie ahead.**

"_Every farthing cost,  
All the dreaded cards foretell,  
Shall be paid, but from this night  
Not a whisper, not a thought,  
__Not a kiss nor look be lost."  
__- W. H. Auden, Lullaby_

* * *

"So, I visited Ihsan and the rest of the pack earlier, and he said that if you or I need any backup all we need to do is call." The redhead grinned broadly and paused in his work of cleaning out the barrels of two old revolvers to give the Slayer a thumbs-up.

"I've never even met any of the werewolves, and they're willing to… to go to battle for me?" the teen struggled to say. He found it hard to believe that he had such allies in his midst, ready to fight- and possibly die- alongside him without his even asking for it in the first place.

"Well, werewolves have a longstanding respect for the Slayers," Axel explained with a lazy shrug. "You kill vampires, their eternal enemies, and for the most part, werewolf communities have avoided any disciplinary action from Slayers, so it's all good. Also, between you and me, it seems like they're all a little excited at the opportunity to attack the Palliata. Something about… the wrongs visited on werewolf elders in the past time of something or other? I don't remember. They just don't like them."

"I can't complain," Sora said with a goofy grin as he leaned over the sink to furiously scrub out a casserole pan. "They can have whatever reasons they want. I'll still be happy to have their help. It's nice to not feel so helpless. Outnumbered."

"Hey, don't forget that you've got me, Leon," he stuck up fingers as he ticked off the names, "Riku, Demyx, and Roxas, too. We're on top of things."

"Yes, the crack team of my bar-owner bestie, boyfriend, boyfriend's dad, boyfriend's pacifistic brother, and boyfriend's brother that can't stand me. Only now he stands me a little."

"He stands you a lot," Axel corrected. "You have to admit, he's gone a complete one-eighty with you. Okay," he relented, Sora's sharp glare reminding him of the occasional instances where Roxas would walk out on him mid-conversation or 'accidentally' hit him while playing the Wii. "More like one-thirty or forty. That better?"

"Yeah. He's not nearly so much of a jerk now."

"Roxas… he's not so much a jerk as misunderstood," Axel said tentatively, staring off into space as he polished the pistol's steel until it gleamed again. "Sort of a mystery that you have to very slowly unwrap- a very delicate fortune cookie, if you'd prefer."

"Uh-huh," Sora said flatly.

"No, no, I'm not, like, trying to justify what all he did and some of his less than admirable behavior. But just so you know, he's actually pretty quiet and nice when he's not all defensive. I don't think he knows how to play well with others very well."

"I could have told you that three months ago-"

"I had to assign him work in the back of the bar to keep him from scaring away customers," Axel cut in. "I don't get why he's so confrontational at times, but then perfectly fine at others. Bipolar?"

"That's not what that means," Sora sighed. "And did you just say that you _assigned_ him work? And he did it?"

"He can also be very cooperative and sweet when he chooses to be. Like I said- he's a mystery," the redhead whispered, his arms flying about in what Sora figured was meant to show mystery and confusion, although it looked like he was pulling and stretching invisible taffy.

"_You're_ a mystery," Sora said flatly as he finished placing recently washed dishes back in their cabinets and shelves. "But I guess it makes a tiny amount of sense. Centuries removed from sane, non-homicidal company could make someone a bit deranged, I suppose. A tad touchy, perhaps."

"Yeah, just a little. But you know, I think I like you living over here now. Now I get to see you and Roxas at the same time. And they have food in the house now! Uh, y'know, other than just what Roxas makes me. Which is getting better, by the way. I know that's probably not the highlight of your memories from that night, but you did a good job showing him how to make potatoes. It's his go-to vegetable now."

"Thanks. At least I did something right during all of that mess." Sora brushed off Axel's look of 'don't say things like that', knowing the conversation that would ensue if he gave it any footing. "And recently he's been watching me cook for myself and sometimes lends a hand, so progress should be coming in leaps and bounds. We made tacos last night, and he took care of the meat and seasoned it right and everything. Wasn't burnt, or underdone, or covered in sugar. Another great success in the kitchen."

"Are you talking about me?" The blonde edged out the hallway, enticed in by the snippet that had sounded like praise.

"Yes," Axel said with an encouraging grin, beckoning the blonde over toward them. "I was just about to tell Sora that _someone_ here made an entire kettle of some weird, delicious Vietnamese soup by himself yesterday and that it tasted better than anything I've ever had from a can."

"It wasn't hard. There's this thing on that internet where you can find recipes from all over the world," he said nonchalantly as he slid onto a stool. "And I ordered you a new keyboard that should arrive tomorrow. Sorry," he added in a whisper to Axel, his bottom lip stretched down in a quick grimace that the redhead just shook off, having forgiven the vampire for accidentally cracking his keyboard into a dozen pieces the same night it had happened.

Roxas cleared his throat and nodded toward Sora. "Riku says he's ready for you to start training."

The brunet squinted his eyes and tried to remember if he had made any such plans with the vampire. "Where? It's not like we can practice _here_, and nowhere else in this building is even near reinforced enough to train in."

"That was what we thought, until we checked out the basement. Leon told the owner that he wanted a floor for storage, offered him a little money, and the man cleared everything out of the third basement level for you. He even let us install one of those number-pad locks, so you don't have to worry about anyone stumbling in on your stuff while you're not there," Roxas said with a small smile. "I took the liberty of picking out the equipment."

"R-really? Are you serious?" Sora grinned and dropped the knife and the apple that he'd been planning to cut and started untying his apron, which was covered in wet splotches from the dishwater.

"Yes, so don't demolish it all. Not that it should break easily- I got only the best. You're not going to be the only ones using it, remember," the blonde vampire reminded him. "We could all use a little brushing up. Just take the elevator down to B3. There's a door to the left end of the hall, and the code is eight-one-three-zero."

"Thanks! I'd better head down right away." The teen tried to contain his excitement and appear mature to the werewolf and vampire, but halfway to the apartment door he gave up and took off running, dashing for the elevator and jumping around inside of it all the way down.

He 'oooh'ed at the number pad and then punched in the right sequence, almost squealing to himself in delight as he heard the clicks and whirrs of the unlocking door- it had definitely been replaced. No typical basement door was three inches thick, or made of such a hard, dense metal, or wired with as many locks as a bank must have.

"Is this supposed to double as some sort of panic room- ah! AH! What are you doing?" The Slayer flailed wildly, only barely dodging the two blades that had whizzed by him as soon as he entered the room.

"We're training. _Intensely_," the vampire said gruffly, although he smiled briefly to remind the boy that he wasn't literally trying to kill him- just simulating it to the point that it _felt_ as though he was trying to kill him.

"What about the padding? Safety measures? Safe words?" Sora asked desperately as he backed up against the wall.

"But you don't get those in real battle."

"I know, but… can't we…"

The look on Riku's face said 'no'. It unsettled Sora to see him like this; it brought back far too many memories of their first encounters. So much had changed between them at this point that even the illusion of the vampire reverting to his old attitude and ways- hungry for him, cruel and snide and eager to kill- was like a nightmare made real. Even a shadow of the horror of seeing a loved one turned into a monster was enough to reach deep into the Slayer and make him shudder.

"I never signed up for this," he tried to joke, but it came out weakly.

Riku stared at him, all business. Sora's attitude toward this scheme turned from unease and nervous humor to a determined anger; the entire situation rubbed him the wrong way, and he disliked that it had obviously been contrived with him left in the dark.

The resigned teen took a few deep breaths, quickly shook out his limbs, and then stood up straight to face Riku. The vampire had all of the advantage- weapons, while Sora had none; protective guards wrapped around his forearms and shins and coverings for his fists, where Sora was still in pajamas; knowledge of the layout of the massive room, which had been filled with large crates and items to make obstacles and hiding places, while Sora was seeing it for the first time; not to mention, _he_ had had the time to fully prepare for a fight, to mentally steel himself for combat against the person he loved, while the brunet was still fretting over the possibility of actually hurting his boyfriend.

Sora groaned as he saw the bright industrial lights on the ceiling systematically shutting off, gradually putting the basement room into total darkness and giving Riku yet another asset.

* * *

Sora laid out a cutting board- one made of marble that was thick and heavy enough to put dent the floor if dropped- on the counter with quick, precise movements. He then put a dish towel on top of it, piled ice cubes from the freezer onto the cloth, and then topped the whole thing with another towel. And then he bashed it, slamming the board over and over with his bare fist and pulverizing the ice sandwiched between the two towels into a fine crush, which he shook into a plastic baggy and pressed against his throbbing shoulder as he rounded on Roxas, who was busy over the sink.

"I thought you were being nice to me," he said to the blonde acidly. "'Oh Sora, Riku wants to see you!'" he said in a high-pitched, mocking tone. "'Oh, and I did you a favor and bought all kinds of awesome stuff for the training room!' Yeah, stuff that _Riku_ gets to use _against_ me."

Roxas shrugged. "It's still for your own good."

"We need to patrol now. Go get ready," Riku ordered, having just entered the apartment after locking down their basement floor. He kept his eyes trained on the blood-smeared gloves as he peeled them from his hands and the guards that he unfastened from his arms, refusing to meet Sora's eyes.

The teen fumed at being avoided and let out a low scream to vent his frustrations as he sulked off to the bedroom to change out of his bloodied clothes and into something that would be less suspicious and less of an undead magnet.

As soon as he heard the door slam close, Riku sped over to Roxas' side and bent to whisper in his ear. "He's mad," he said worriedly. "He's really, really mad. _At me_."

"You think?" Roxas asked in a hushed voice. "Did you see him crushing that ice? He knows we have a machine that does that. I don't… Keep your sensitive areas out of punching distance," the blonde warned solemnly.

The younger vampire frowned and subconsciously covered himself with both hands, genuinely a little worried for his safety. Of course, they all (with the exception of Demyx, who was busy cavorting with his boyfriend) had agreed that the best course of action in preparation for the inevitable conflict with the Palliata was a full-force, high-intensity, blisteringly fast training program to get the Slayer into top form.

And part of their goal was to create a more durable Sora, who could handle the bashing that a powerful vampire could hand out and then get right back up to fight another. He needed to be able to defeat turok-han, ancient vampires, and summoned demons. He had to be stronger, and faster, and have more stamina than ever before. He needed experience with a vast array of weapons and the knowledge to use his own to their maximum efficacy and counter others' in optimal fashion.

In Riku's recent understanding, this amounted to him beating Sora into a better Slayer and throwing dirty every trick in the book at him. It was realistic, and would benefit him as a Slayer, but that didn't take away the twinges of guilt whenever he saw Sora looking especially pained or hurtfully surprised. He sighed and slipped onto a stool at the counter, slumping over and frowning dejectedly. This would have been a much easier thing to do six months ago.

"It's a good thing that Axel left before you got back up here. He would've mauled you if he'd seen the Slayer that upset," Roxas informed him with a perfectly straight face.

"I can't say I would blame him much," his brother said bitterly, still staring down at the counter. "But… it will pay off when he can win, won't it?" He looked toward the other vampire for reassurance, biting his pale lip while he waited for it.

"If he gets that strong- and he should- then yes," Roxas replied. "This won't seem so bad when he's able to hold his own against turok-han and slay greater demons on his own," he added in an attempt to be comforting.

"I hope so," he said with a low grumble. "What's with that jacket?" Riku asked, hoping to change the uncomfortable subject. He picked up the black and white houndstooth coat that had been lying on one of the seats, only to have it immediately snatched out of his hands by his brother.

"That's mine," the blonde said quickly, clutching it close to his chest. "A-Axel got it for me."

One of the silver-haired vampire's eyebrows rose. "Oh. He picked that out for you? He knows your favourite colors, that's for sure."

"No, I told him that I liked it and he bought it for me."

"Why didn't you just buy it for yourself if you liked it so much?" Riku asked quizzically, reaching for the item again only to have it pulled away _again_. Roxas was practically petting the jacket, holding it defensively close and mumbling something that included the words 'special' and 'nice' and 'as a gift', none of which Riku was actually interested in, still consumed as he was by thoughts of the Slayer.

After watching his brother retreat into the safety of his room, Riku began picking and clawing at the countertop as he waited on Sora, trying to devise ways to please him outside of training, to make up for the brutality of it without coddling the teen or letting him know how much he disliked it as well. It had to be done, after all. He did half wish that Roxas could be sharing this burden, especially since there wasn't much love to lose between his brother and the Slayer in the first place. Sora would probably expect the abuse from Roxas, at least.

"Let's go," the teen said shortly as he came out of the bedroom, still slipping his jacket on and with two stakes clutched in one hand. One quick look from the brunet immediately struck all thought of pleasant chit-chat or tenderness from Riku's mind, his number one concern now for his own safety- primarily keeping either of those stakes from ending up lodged in his own body.

* * *

"So, why are we now responsible for educating the Slayer on-" Roxas stopped to squint at the page, frowning slightly as he huffed out, "_inverse functions_? Does he even need to know this?" he asked incredulously, flipping through the pre-calculus book furiously. "As if we didn't already have enough to cram into his head about demonic weaknesses and the properties of magical items."

"I'll get him materials for the topics you're less familiar with and teach him some myself," Cloud answered as he piled stacks of books and worksheets onto the coffee table, trying to be as helpful as possible. "But I figured that you all might be able to work with him when I'm not around, on things like literature, and history-"

"Oh, I'll teach him history," Roxas piped up, eyes suddenly alight with interest. "The _real_ stuff, too-"

"From the book," Leon warned the blonde vampire sternly, glaring until Roxas pouted and resumed paging through the texts.

"I tried talking the principal into letting Sora finish the school year, but he won't budge," Cloud said in response to Roxas' first question. "He could always just study and take the equivalency test, but as long as there's still a chance for him to get through school and graduate, I think we should try. He could use a little normality in his life." The young man shrugged simply and looked to Leon for support, but the brunet was busy pacing, still stuck on a point from their earlier discussion.

"Why aren't they letting him attend, exactly?" Leon asked for the second time now, still agitated and unconvinced by the answer that Cloud had given him- not by any fault of the teacher's, but because of the rule itself.

"Twenty unexcused absences per year. Sora's gone five over the limit, and we're not even close to finished with classes. The principal asked me if I could at least promise that he wouldn't miss any more days, but that's impossible to expect from someone who's out slaying demons and saving people every night."

"Maybe you could call the Watchers and ask them to do something about it? They're good at pulling strings, right?" Demyx said from across the room, near the hallway, wary of coming too close to the area of the living room where work was being assigned.

"Don't get your hopes up," Roxas said crossly. "I bet they've forgotten all about him by now."

"Watchers never forget anything," Leon said coldly. "And given their affinity to learning and knowledge in general, they just might care enough to get the Slayer a timely education."

Roxas crossed his arms and looked as though he wanted to argue, but was unwilling to disagree with his sire.

"Watchers?" Cloud asked with a slight shake of his head, trying to determine where he'd heard that before.

"Nosy people," Leon explained brusquely.

"Leon ran into one of them face-to-face a couple of centuries ago," Riku said with a grin and a nod. He glanced at the older vampire. "Remember that?"

"Ansem. How could I forget?"

"Did he try to kill you?" the blonde human asked quietly, his wondering blue eyes scanning each of the vampires' faces in an attempt to pick up clues as to what had happened.

"No. He tried to talk to me."

"Oh, that's worse," Cloud said jokingly, chuckling slightly as the brunet grunted. "What about?"

"Doing his thesis on me. He wanted a first person account of my failures in turning humans and my interactions with the Palliata."

Blonde brows were raised in surprise at anyone's gall to confront the vampire in such a way. "Did you tell him?"

The vampire kept his eyes trained on Cloud's as he took a long drink from his mug. "No."

The blonde shuddered a little at the tone of Leon's voice and its implications, but at the same time he found himself smiling lightly at the brunet's smirk as he reminisced. He was an interesting person- surprisingly funny if you were quick enough to catch it and even a little quirky underneath his calm-by-default demeanor.

They suited each other better than Cloud had ever known a couple to; it was miles better than any of his past relationships, where he always held on to a level of discomfort and distrust, and being in their home felt alien. Here, he felt at ease with Leon, although Roxas and Riku unnerved him at times. It never felt awkward around the vampire anymore; even in potentially embarrassing moments, like the time he'd tried his hand at being moderately sexy only to slip backwards off of the bed and break the lamp Aerith had given him as a housewarming gift _with his head_, there was a warmth and trust there that kept him from shying away or panicking over what Leon thought of him. When alone, they could nearly carry on a conversation by themselves with just expression and body language and pure sound, never needing to come up with words when a laugh or moan or hum would suffice. Even so, Leon could actually be quite talkative when he was on the edge of sleep after a few drinks, as the blonde had found on several nights.

"As if writing a dissertation wasn't scary enough already… he had to include vampires." Cloud shrugged as Leon smiled behind his coffee cup. There was a quick exchange of papers and fond touches before Cloud left, still needing to get home and grade a stack of tests before tomorrow.

"I like him," Roxas said with a soft nod, looking up to his sire to show his approving expression. "He doesn't get all righteously offended when you hint at having killed in the past, unlike _someone's_ significant other-"

"If I recall correctly, Axel isn't too pleased by that kind of talk, either," Riku reminded his brother, his eyes staying trained on their sire until he was locked away in his room. "Or maybe I should just take him that page out of your diary from back in the twenties, when you were in Australia-"

"Y-you read my diary?" The blood of his recent meal raced to his cheeks, turning them unusually bright. "I-I-_you_-"

"And I made copies of a few choice sections, so if you'd rather not have your werewolf reading firsthand accounts of what all you got up to when you were younger then I'd recommend you stop taking jabs at the Slayer for being all Slayer-like. At least he has an excuse for being so righteous. It's hardwired into his brain," the vampire growled, pointing to his own silvery white covered head for emphasis. "He can't help it."

"Then maybe he shouldn't be hanging around vampires so much," the blonde muttered, mostly to himself. "Except for Demyx. They can bond over their affinity for life, and marshmallows, and babies. I bet they both love babies."

Riku wasn't sure what to say in response, but he did agree. Both seemed like they would fawn over an infant if given the chance.

"I don't like babies," Roxas continued to mumble, shaking his head as he flipped through more of the books that Cloud had left. "Or kids. Well, I mean, I _like_ them, just not caring for them-"

"Roxas-"

"What, I can't even talk about these things with _you_, now?" the older vampire groaned. "It's not like I'm going to run out and eat one. Axel would kill me, you would kill me, the Slayer would kill me, Demyx would cry. I'm not in the mood for any of that." He sent a sly look over at his brother. "I mean, it's not like _you_ never-"

"I'm well aware of what I've done," Riku spat, sighing a moment later. "I was there, after all. I just don't like… thinking about it. Or talking about it."

"You feel guilty," Roxas stated, his eyebrows raised at the ludicrous thought- a vampire, remorseful over killing some unimportant humans and their offspring.

"Don't you?" Riku considered his brother as the blonde vampire sat motionless, aside from occasional blinking and small movements of his lips as he thought it over.

"Not really. I mean… maybe," he reluctantly admitted, now busying himself by stacking the books back onto the coffee table. "But why should I?"

"I don't know," Riku said with a shrug. He sat in silence for a few moments, watching Roxas tidy up the area, before saying in the most casual way possible, "But someone has to have been dipping into my and Demyx's blood supply. We know that Leon occasionally has a bit, but this is more like someone eating entire meals…"

He trailed off as the blonde's alabaster white skin was suddenly tinged again with red, smiling as his brother's movements grew fidgety and nervous. The older vampire made and excuse for himself and took off to the training room, leaving behind all of the books and papers he'd been gathering together.

* * *

Sora was occupied with wrapping bandages around his lower leg, hoping to fasten a cold-pack to his bruised shin and stave off some of the pain. The teen had laughed at Riku's hesitant offer to help, and the vampire now sat opposite of him in the living room, watching blankly as the Slayer patched up his various bruises and aches and scrapes.

Distantly, Sora thought he might be treating him a little coldly, but after recalling a few key moments in their mock-combat- namely Riku's refusing to stop when he'd thought he had twisted his ankle, or when he'd suddenly brought out the brass knuckles- the teen didn't feel nearly so bad.

The only reason that Riku had ended their training so early was because Demyx had pleaded for the two to take time out of their busy schedule to meet Zexion- they were the only ones who had not seen the often-spoken of human yet, and as far as Demyx was concerned, it would be a crime to delay their meeting any further.

After a long walk in silence, they met Demyx and Zexion in one of the city's older graveyards, well within the city limits but still large enough- and with a strong reputation for being haunted- to be given a wide berth by most of the locals, especially at night. As soon as they were within eyesight, Demyx leapt from the gravestone where he'd been perched and galloped toward them, his boyfriend following behind quickly.

Sora pegged him at about twenty, although at times he certainly looked like he might be younger. He had a habit of hiding a good portion of his face behind his hair, which made the brunet wonder if he might be shy, but a few minutes of conversation and the other man's commanding stare righted those thoughts.

"Hi. You must be Zexion," Sora greeted pleasantly, sticking out his hand for a shake.

The young man eyed him briefly before accepting, and returned with, "The Slayer, I presume? It's an honor."

"Um, thanks."

"This is my brother, Riku," Demyx injected, clapping the other vampire on the shoulder and grinning. "I'm so glad everyone knows everyone now!"

There was an awkward pause, the four all taking turns looking at each other. Sora could see Riku appraising Zexion with a sharp eye, although he was careful not to outright stare, trying to get a feel for the blue-gray haired human.

"Yeah, it's awesome. So. Um… How did you two meet?" the brunet asked quietly. He was at a loss for anything else to discuss with Demyx's boyfriend, and though the topic might be personal, it was at least an alternative to the silent stare he was getting from the man.

"Um, haha, wow," Demyx said bashfully. "It was in a feeder den."

Riku's eyebrows shot up and his focus shifted entirely to Zexion; his expression was all amusement and curiosity. "Vamp-tramps?"

"Don't look at me like that," the man protested quickly, heat rushing to his cheeks. "I'm not one of those morons. I was simply… interested in the mythology. I had come across some compelling accounts of vampires' existence when I snuck into a private area of one of the local libraries where I live- probably part of a Watcher's collection that was not well guarded- and I decided that the most expedient and reliable way to encounter one myself was by hanging around the bait. You would have to be a naïve fool to think that the average vampire would turn you in exchange for blood, or anything else," he declared, scoffing at the thought.

"Quite the charmer," Riku said under his breath.

"So how exactly did you meet?" Sora asked, ignoring his vampire while he squinted at the other human, as if it would help him understand what had led him to Demyx, and to here. "Why was Demyx in one of those places?" he questioned, throwing a wondering gaze in the mowhawked vampire's direction.

"Oh, not like that. It was a few years ago, when I was still in high school. He was trying to talk sense into the rest of the Immortals' Loves- I did not pick the name," he paused to stress, giving them a look that showed just how absurd he found the vampire fan club's moniker. "He was warning them that the vampires that had promised to turn them would just come back with friends and slaughter them all, but they refused to listen. They mocked him, told him he was an imitation of a vampire and could not possibly understand the bond of a human blood-giver and a vampire." Zexion made a face, a subtle mix of an eye-roll and a sneer, showing exactly what he thought of that.

"It _is_ a pretty powerful connection. Feeling. Thing," Sora said awkwardly. He shifted as he realized all stares were on him, and Riku's practically radiating glee over the memory didn't help.

Zexion surveyed him carefully. "Well, I wouldn't know firsthand," he said with a lift of his shoulders and a brief glance toward Demyx, who had taken hold of Riku and was talking animatedly as they meandered off. "The physical sensation can be a rush. People get addicted to it- although there aren't many feeding-junkies out there, as most end up dead relatively quickly. The problem is that they don't realize that while it's addictively thrilling to them, it is an everyday thing for vampires, and they don't have difficulty with finishing a donor off and moving on. I imagine it's different when there is an emotional connection there to begin with."

Sora nodded a quick agreement, unused to hearing another human discussing supernatural topics with so much ease and knowledge and at a loss for the right way to respond. It was almost an eerie feeling, hearing someone that looked like such a normal human rattling on about vampires, but it also gave him the same strange sort of comfort that talking to Axel and Mr. Strife did. It was rare to find someone that straddled the worlds of the mundane and the supernatural, much less to be sane about it.

"Anyway, I knew it was time to get out of there, and Demyx had offered to take any of us that were willing to flee but had nowhere else to go."

Sora's eyes widened. "That's… kind of heroic of him," he said, impressed.

"He is a really great person," Zexion agreed. "The nicest _I've_ ever known. But I was the only one that listened to him. We found out about a week later that the whole group had been eaten as a feast. No one was turned. It was into a huge thing in my town, this whole massacre. Demyx moped every time the news came on for weeks."

"I can't blame him. He takes things to heart pretty quickly," Sora said with a half-nod. "Not that that's a bad thing, especially for a vampire."

"I just have to remind him that he cannot save people who are unwilling to be helped," the young human said with a shrug. "He doesn't like that. He's really special for a vampire. And as a person," he added quickly.

"He is." As the silence between them stretched on, Sora sought a new line of conversation. "So… you were interested enough in vampires to put yourself in harm's way?" Sora asked, half-amused and half-disappointed.

"Who wouldn't be?" Zexion answered a bit defensively. "Immortality. Eternal youth. Superhuman strength. All the time to read in the world," he added with a half-smile. "Humans have sought after all of those things for millennia."

"There are a lot of bad things about vampirism, too, you know," Sora chided.

Zexion sighed. "Did he put you up to this? This is about me, isn't it?" he asked with sagged shoulders, half-groaning. "Yes, I have seen the horrible things that can happen. I know the dangers of it. And I don't care about that. All I want is to be like Demyx."

"He didn't ask me to talk to you. I just wanted to," Sora shrugged. "We're in similar situations."

"Oh. I take it… you're not interested in becoming a vampire?"

"No. No, it doesn't feel right," the Slayer replied, rubbing his arm and shaking his head. "I can't imagine myself being one, you know? _Wanting_ to hurt and kill people… I can't deal with that. But I guess it's a little different for me," he said to Zexion.

"You are the Slayer," the young man pointed out.

"Mmhmm. And I've seen too many fresh vampires- not that most of the older ones are much better, mind you. The fledglings might be reckless and brutal, but it's almost worse when a vampire gets enough self-control that they can really plan out attacks and draw out death. They can attack children without hesitation, kill without remorse. It makes me sick to think I could do the same."

"It's not pleasant to think about," Zexion admitted. "But turning fifty while my lover still looks twenty isn't, either. Him having to see me die… that is hard to think about, too."

The two sat in silence.

"Demyx doesn't want to turn you?" Sora asked softly.

"No. He has the same fears that you do. He's scared that I'll be completely unlike myself, too hungry and violent. I told him he could restrain me if it was necessary, for however long it takes me to calm down- a century, even. Train me to be repulsed by human blood. Use magic to sedate me. Anything. He doesn't like those ideas, either," he huffed softly. "And you? Riku wants you to be a vampire?"

"Yup."

He grunted. "I wish we could swap."

Sora laughed at their situations, so alike and different at the same time. "It sure would be easier. I mean, I don't want him to be sad, and I don't want either of us to be alone. I just wish it didn't have to be like this."

"It sucks." He smiled for the first time that Sora had seen, although only half was visible thanks to the curtain of hair over his face.

"Yup," the teen agreed, abrubtly falling backwards with a thud that alarmed Zexion and then spreading himself out on the dark earth as if making a snow angel. "Who said immortality was easy?" he asked with a snort. "It blows. Especially when all of the _important_ vampires have their panties in a knot over whether or not I get it," he said with a sneer. "Ugh."

"The Palliata, right?" Zexion barely waited for the Slayer's nod of confirmation before continuing. "I… I would rather you not tell Demyx," he whispered, "but I want to help you with that."

Sora sat up in one movement, head tilted on its side. "Like… by baking snacks?" he asked tentatively.

The look on the young man's face was pained enough to make Sora wince. "No, I am not _useless_," he nearly growled. His voice dropped to a whisper again. "I can do magic. I've been practicing since Demyx left. I had always had some talent for it, of course," he added with a bit of pride, "but I can do so much more now. I can fight."

"Really? You can? So why don't you want me telling Demyx?" the brunet asked quietly, glancing around to reassure himself that the vampires were still nowhere nearby.

"I think the only thing that he hates more than fighting is the thought of _me_ fighting," Zexion said with a reluctant sigh. "Demyx may be unusual for a vampire, but he has a lot of the same tendencies as his brothers- over-protectiveness, a penchant for assuming that he knows best, etcetera. He doesn't think I should be involved at all, or that I should even be learning combative magic in the first place."

Sora gave him a sympathetic smile.

"I'm not helpless because I'm human." Zexion was leaning heavily against the side of a mausoleum now, his left hand poised under his chin. His mouth was set in a line while he kept his eyes on the ground before him, apparently in thought. After a moment he said, "I hate being seen as weak. I'm not. I can stand by him. And you," he added, turning to face the Slayer.

"I'd be thankful to have you there, since you're capable," the brunet admitted, making sure to show that he had confidence in the magician's self-professed abilities. "But I'd never ask it of you. I mean, it's going to be dangerous and..."

Sora trailed off as he heard whispering and felt a slight rumble of the earth, his mouth falling open as he saw the mausoleum behind Zexion lifting up from the earth just a few feet, soil and clinging tree roots falling from its base as it hovered in place.

"I think I can handle it."

"I think that might be sacrilegious or at least disrespectful to the dead," Sora whispered, his eyes still wide in stunned amazement.

Zexion made a startled noise as he thought better of hoisting up the bodies of the deceased and carefully lowered the small marble chamber back down, gently brushing the side in hopes of making amendments. It wasn't altogether uncommon for witches and warlocks to leave curses on their graves and those of their loved ones, and it wasn't worth chancing offending any lingering spirits.

"That… was so cool," the Slayer nearly squealed, already up from his spot on the ground and by the warlock's side. "What else can you do? Can you make things disappear?"

"I can do just about anything when I have my Lexicon," he said with a smug smile.

"What's that?"

Zexion seemed just short of sighing and rolling his eyes. "I thought you were a specialist in the extraordinary? A Lexicon is a book of human-based magic spells. It's possible to perform magic without one, but simply holding such a source of magic enhances a human's power. They are incredibly difficult to create and obtain, however."

"So how did you get one?"

The warlock shrugged his shoulders and frowned, saying, "Watchers should keep better watch over their personal libraries if they don't want valuable books to wind up missing."

* * *

"How am I doing?" Sora asked tonelessly after landing another solid punch to Riku's chest.

"Better than anticipated," the vampire bit out, rubbing the sore area while trying to dodge another blow- one that surely would have cracked a brick wall right through to the other side. "I guess this was a good training route to go after all."

Sora paused, letting Riku think that he was about to relent, and then lunged forward to quickly knock him square in the jaw. Taking hold of the stunned vampire's arm and side, he then swung him five feet through the air and into a wall, where he hit with a resounding thud before falling to the floor.

"I guess," the brunet agreed, panting as he turned his back on the weakly moaning vampire that was slumped against the wall and headed for the cooler of water that was by the door. "But you know, I thought that, as a couple, we were supposed to decide on things together. Or hell, even just as friends or sparring partners, consulting each other should be a given. Not just, 'Blah blah, I know what's best, so we'll just do that without telling Sora at all, and he can deal'. You know?"

Riku tried to pick himself up, using the wall for support, but just slid back down, his legs weak after being kicked out from under him repeatedly in the last hour. "I- yes, I know. And point made. I fully see things from your perspective, now," he said as he rubbed his sore arms and aching knuckles.

"Don't get me wrong. I like knowing that I'm getting stronger, and I'm willing to take a few hits for it," the brunet said as he turned around. "It's not you being a trainer from hell that bothers me, or the exhausting hours, or that you broke my nose. That's just part of being a Slayer. It's more that you didn't even talk to me about it. I just wish… I dunno, that I'd been involved even an ounce in planning my own training? I mean, _I'm_ the one that's going to be using it."

"We-_ I_- didn't want you to worry over it. You're under enough stress as it is. And combined, we have over a thousand years of experience. Forgive me for thinking we might know enough to put this together for you." The vampire's voice was tight as he stretched out his limbs before finally getting up and approaching the brunet.

"Oh? I need a thousand years of experience to say, 'I would rather focus on more weapons training'? Or 'since my left knee is already a little tricky at times, I think we should lay off it so that when I really need to push it in battle I don't have to worry about the state of my cartilage from numerous brutal practice sessions'? It's that kind of thing, Riku," he growled, shaking his head. "Or having the notice so that I could mentally prepare myself for facing off with my boyfriend, like you had time to."

"Oh."

"Oh," Sora mimicked, rolling his eyes at the simple answer. The vampire's expression said all of the things that the Slayer had been hoping to hear. Still, he felt the need to drive the point home. "It's not easy, is it? Seeing your boyfriend coming at you like he's going to bludgeon you?"

"No. But," he said haltingly, "it's not much easier to be the one doing it."

"Mm," Sora agreed somberly. "But if you pull something like this again, I don't think I'll have too hard of a time with it," he said with a broad grin that would have been bright, had the white of his smile not been dulled by some blood still stuck between his teeth and around the edges of his gums. "And now I'm strong enough to kick your ass when you ignore me."

The vampire chuckled weakly, tired and aching but at least satisfied now with the state of things between them both. "We'll see about that."

"I'm sorry, do you need help getting back to the room?" the teen asked cheerily, his smile growing larger. He was sporting a few painful injuries of his own, but in the name of 'ha ha, getting back at Riku for earlier', he refused to show any signs of wear and tear.

"No, I don't," the vampire spat.

"How about I fix you an ice pack? Or would you rather crush your own? It's a great stress reliever. I speak from experience." Sora couldn't keep the smug grin off of his face.

"I'll crush _something_," Riku said warningly, but his smile gave him away.

"Yeah, yeah, you big pile of Jell-O. Try not to hurt yourself."

* * *

"Is it time already for another sit-down talk?" Leon went ahead and folded up the newspaper before placing it on the table next to his armchair, ready to give his full attention to the vampire lurking in the shadows at the edge of the hallway.

"How is it that you can still make me feel like a confused teenager when I'm two-hundred?" Riku asked with a reluctant smile. He approached the chair where his sire was sitting with slow, dragging steps, both due to a reluctance about the subject matter and the dull sting in his legs and joints.

The brunet answered with a half-shrug. He gave the younger vampire a reassuring glance, encouraging him to voice whatever questions he had.

Riku came to a stop right in front of him, his gaze intent on his hands as he played with the ring on his right middle finger as he spoke. "I know you don't like talking about this kind of stuff, but… Sora and I had a conversation about w-what we're going to do, you know, down the road."

"I'm not going to tell you what to do."

"I'm not asking you to. I just want to know what you and Cloud are doing," he said pleadingly, his focus now placed solely on Leon.

"We're taking things slowly. He's young. He has plenty of time to decide what he wants to do, and I'll abide by that when the time comes," he explained, pausing to take a drink of something that looked like strawberry milk. "Why?"

"Don't you worry that something might happen to him? That he might die before he gets to make that choice? Our company isn't exactly a _repellant_ for danger," Riku half-exclaimed, growing more agitated by the second, his own worries creeping into the conversation.

"Cloud is an adult. I informed him of the risk and he made the decision to keep seeing me. And I won't let anything happen to him," he added slowly.

"You can't watch him all the time. You can't predict what monsters might be waiting for him, or plotting to kill him. You don't know what he might get up to! Always trying to do the right thing and fight evil and defend other people," he was muttering rapidly as he paced back and forth in front of the older vampire. "He'd jump off of a cliff if it would save a puppy!"

Leon's eyebrow lifted slightly. "Sora?"

"No, I- oh, yeah, I guess," Riku said haltingly, stopping in his tracks as he realized that he'd been thinking about only Sora this whole time. "Sorry, I meant Cloud-"

"You're worried. It's normal. It's fine."

"It's not fine. Why won't he even consider it? Doesn't he think about what it could be like? How great it could be? Or how awful it will be if he doesn't?" The young vampire sank into a chair across from the brunet and slumped over, his face buried in his hands.

Leon stood up and circled the silver-haired vampire's chair quietly, finding a good position to crouch down next to it and lay his hand on Riku's shoulder. "Slayers' worst nightmares are always of becoming vampires," Leon stated, now carefully kneading the tense muscles at the base of Riku's neck. "It goes back to the first Slayers."

Riku's jaw tightened and his lips thinned as he recalled the stories passed around by vampires in old taverns- Slayers, so frightened of their main adversary that they woke up in cold sweats just from the thought of becoming one of them. Usually, vampires laughed about their fear, took pride in instilling so much dread. "Well, so does a repulsion to vampires and demons in general, but apparently _that_ can be overcome," Riku argued, although weakly, peeking out through his hair. "It's different if you're in love, isn't it?"

"You aren't the first vampire and Slayer to be involved," the older vampire explained with a half-smile. "Slayers are closer to vampires than humans on many terms. It's not so surprising for two things that are so consumed with one another to grow close. But crossing that gap…"

"He doesn't have to be afraid of it," Riku protested weakly. "The Palliata is already involved. It's too late to avoid that. And he's seen what it could be like as one of us. He's scared of hurting people, but look at Demyx-"

"You know as well as I do that Demyx is special. You can't promise the Slayer a miracle like that."

"- then just look at yourself, or me! I'm thinking that even Roxas falls into the category of 'ambivalent-rather-than-murderous' at this point!"

"I doubt any Slayer would ever forgive itself for causing even a fraction of the destruction that we did in our youths."

"But, but-"

"Riku," Leon said with a gentle sigh, waiting to catch Riku's gaze before speaking. "This is one battle that you shouldn't fight."

"Why not?"

"Because it's selfish."

"Oh, and it's not selfish of _him_ to only think about what will make _him_ happy? To expect both of us to abide by his fears but ignore the things that give me nightmares? To dismiss the fact that I'll most likely have to watch him die and then either end myself or continue on miserably? Where do you get off, anyway? I recall that _you_ were damn selfish whenever it came to someone that you wanted to be with," he shouted, vehement, his cheeks and lips flushing red and his fangs showing threateningly.

Riku half expected to feel the larger, stronger vampire's hand close around his throat, or a slap, or at least hear a snarl. Bringing up old wounds never made things any better, especially with a vampire like Leon, who felt every loss like a raw burn and held on to them for centuries.

"I know," was all that Leon said at first, with his hands folded in his lap and his demeanor controlled and calm. "And I've finally learned. I hope you need not go through the misfortunes and pains that I did to do the same. There's no selfishness in accepting the natural course of things, the limited time we're supposed to be allotted."

"I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say…" Riku shook his head at his own behavior, almost stunned that the words had come from his mouth. "I just- I wish- I can't do _this_, like _this_, with _him_," he finally ground out, curling his hands into fists and shaking at the words. "It's so frustrating, and I don't know what to do, but I _do_ know that when I just think about him dying I feel like I'm alive again and I'm drowning at sea. And if it hurts that much to imagine it, then how will I ever survive when it actually happens?"

"I don't recall ever deceiving you or your brothers into thinking that being in love was pleasant, painless, or easy." The vampire gave him an understanding twitch of his lips, an almost smile.

"Well, that's just great," Riku said with an exasperated laugh, his head bobbing up and down. "Perfect. All this love and concern is making me feel physically ill. My insides are churned up like, ugh. And all stretched out, too, where I can't feel at ease for a second. How do you do it?"

Riku watched his sire's eyes, always indicative of the sort of burden that the vampire felt- at least to those that knew how to see it- while he waited for an answer. Leon had gone through so much love and loss, as all old vampires did; the lovers and loved ones and falling outs and deaths inevitably accumulated over the centuries. His tragic involvements with humans, their subsequent deaths, and strings of failed attempts at lasting relationships had all affected him more deeply than Riku knew many vampires to feel, even among the aged ones. It didn't help that Leon had something of a proclivity toward angst and brooding and silently shouldering guilt to begin with.

Riku wasn't sure if he'd been a particularly passionate human- except in regard to exploration, which had been his defining interest- so he figured that if he was torturing himself over a human lover, it must be Leon's blood making itself known. He almost wished he could do this the easy way, as most vampires did, and simply impose his own will over whatever human he wanted to keep with him. Once he gave it any serious thought, or imagined the scenario playing out, the idea made him feel slightly nauseous, though.

"When it comes to this, you get used to the pain, because the reward is always greater than the cost. That doesn't make it any easier. I know," he added under his breath, trying to comfort the unusually quiet and somber vampire. He squeezed himself onto the chair with Riku and wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him close, gently stroking the younger man's upper arm. He sighed and added, "There is always time for something to happen. Nothing is entirely impossible. His feelings might change… and Demyx could finally master the blender. Roxas might start doing his own laundry. You never know."

Riku buried his face against Leon's neck and let out a muffled, "I really love you." He turned his head to the side so that he could speak more clearly and added, "Thanks. I know you don't enjoy listening to us complain all the time. And I know you hate having to actually speak a number of full sentences, even paragraphs, to console us."

"I'm just relieved that you have someone like the Slayer to experience this sort of thing with. I was a little worried when you were younger," Leon admitted as he reached for the remote, flipping on the TV only to mute it and click from channel to channel in silence.

"Because I dated so much after we split? If you can call it dating," Riku amended with a grimace.

"Because they were all vampires, were all awful, and all ended up trying to kill you," Leon reminded him.

"Oh, right. So you wanted me to find a human all along, eh?" he asked wryly, looking up at the older vampire and nodding knowingly.

"Well, they generally do not try to kill their significant others in their sleep," the brunet explained with a brief lift of his shoulders. Leon had always liked that about humans. "I hope the Slayer follows that pattern."

"So far, so good, in that regard."

Leon gave him a look that advised him not to push it, and then wished him luck before clapping him on the shoulder and heading to bed.

* * *

"It's a Cheshire cat moon tonight."

"What?"

"The moon," Sora said louder, grinning at the vampire's confusion.

The teen knocked his boyfriend on the shoulder and then pointed to the night sky. The moon had been carved down into the barest sliver of white and the crescent was on its back, upturned like a smile.

"See? It looks like the Cheshire cat's smile. You can almost even make out his head if you squint. It's the darker area. Sort of round, like a head, with a big, bright smile."

"Really?" Riku asked skeptically, settling his gaze on the moon and staring a good long while. "I don't see it."

"That's because you have no imagination," the brunet teased. He pulled up the collar of his jacket-which was far too stylish for slaying, and for him in general, but most things that Riku picked out were- trying to block the cold gust that had suddenly risen and swept through the sparse woods.

"I can see the rabbit in the moon," the vampire argued, speaking over the rattling of branches and howling wind. He reached over to help adjust the Slayer's jacket, trying to cover him up more. "It's not like I'm incapable of seeing amusing animal things that aren't really there."

Sora hummed and nodded his head indulgently, secretly charmed by his boyfriend's sensitivity to any sort of disparaging comment, his constant efforts to seem strong and talented and imaginative and everything else. "Sure."

"I mean it," Riku protested, huffing. "I'll have you know I'm deeply inventive. I bet I can come up with more creative responses to Rorschach inkblots than you can," he challenged, also resolving to himself to figure out this Cheshire moon before the next one occurred, so that he could show Sora his understanding of it.

The Slayer chuckled softly and declined, and for the next few minutes they walked together in tranquil silence, until a rabid vampire leapt out upon them. After a short tussle and staking, they were up and patrolling again, albeit with a few more bruises and grass stains than before.

"But I can't imagine a world without you." Riku picked up from their last bit of conversation, although now with a much more melancholy tone. "Despite my highly active imagination, I mean."

"Me neither," Sora agreed. "Well, actually, I can but it's really upsetting."

"You growing old and fading away…"

"Hah! I wish," Sora laughed, always to some degree aware of the likelihood of death that Slayers faced.

"Or being taken away, too young, after we've barely been able to be together. You may be able to look at the promise of a few years of companionship and love and think it enough time, but for me that's the tiniest sliver of my life. Like one dream from one night in a thousand. Over way too soon…"

"This feels like a dream to you?" the brunet asked with a soft smile, leaning in against the vampire briefly.

"I'm a vampire dating the Slayer that I tried to kill on several occasions. It feels a little surreal at times." Riku shook slightly at the feeling brought on by the memories, glancing down at Sora's neck guiltily, always aware of the scar there no matter how many layers the teen wore over it. But as much as it made his mouth feel sickly sweet and his stomach crawl to think of it, he was somewhat glad for the reminder of their violent past, if only to make him more appreciative of what they had obtained.

"You're not the only one here that worries over what it would be like not to have your way," Sora protested. "You think I don't worry over what could happen? How terrible it could be? What about me changing completely after I'm turned, to the point that you don't even want me anymore because I'm not myself at all."

"As if that were possible?" Riku said with a bark of a laugh.

"I would hope you like me so much for my personality and-and-and… and my _me_-ness," he cried, unable to find a more accurate word for it, "that you _would_ leave me if that changed. And what about me killing you while I'm in a frenzy, or people harassing you all nonstop on my account. I mean, no one seems happy at the thought of me being a vampire except for you."

"Ah, that second one already happens. We can deal with it."

"And the first one?" Sora waited impatiently for the vampire to react. "I know I'd be ridiculously strong as a vampire, especially if you made me. Even more so if it had to be Leon or Roxas, for whatever reason. You established that on that night when you were at my window. Would any of you even be able to contain me? To keep me from going on a rampage?"

"All of us combined? It's possible-"

"But it's also possible that I'd toss you around like ragdolls and then drink half the city dry, right?"

"I doubt that," Riku answered incredulously.

"How do you know? How strong would a Slayer-vamp be? How many Slayers-turned-vampires have there been?"

"In recent history? None that I've ever known of. Not for thousands and thousands of years. But that doesn't mean much. It's not like the Palliata or the Watchers are lacking in the resources to cover that up. It _has_ to have happened before."

"Way back in prehistory?"

"Yes, certainly." He suddenly turned mischievous, grinning and added, "You could mark history forever if you wanted. Make a name for yourself. I don't think they can hide things like they used to, you know. Especially if you wiped them out," he suggested brightly.

"I'd like to be a little _less_ well known among the denizens of evil and the hell spawn from alternate dimensions, actually."

"I can't imagine why-"

"Of course _you_ can't. You're such a fiend for attention and fear-induced respect. I wouldn't be surprised if you mailed pamphlets about yourself to all of your enemies… so that they'd know you when you did finally meet and fight them." Sora chuckled. "Like, 'Oh no! It's that Riku Väisälä. He's bad news- I got an official-looking thing in the mail that said so. He knows forty-eight different matrial arts! He _invented_ Systema! He builds quaint rocking chairs from the bones of his enemies! Once, he even punched Cthulhu!'"

"All of which is correct, of course," the vampire said with a cheeky grin, "except that I don't know a damn thing about Systema. Do you?" he asked quickly, his expression clearly indicating that he would be awed and amazed if the Slayer did.

"No, but it might be worth learning," Sora said brightly, recalling videos of the art that he'd found online. "Good enough for Spetsnaz, then good enough for me. We should look into some martial arts, you know?"

"I would definitely feel a bit more at ease about the upcoming discussion-to-the-death if I knew that you were capable of hitting a bulls-eye with a throwing-axe while upside-down, mid-somersault," Riku agreed, making a mental note to have Roxas and Axel start studying up on various fighting styles. "I remember Roxas once babbling about having an undead Shaolin monk teach him to wield twin hooks. You should ask him about that."

"Dual wielding? I'm game," the brunet said excitedly. In recent days, anticipation had begun to replace his dread over the impending conflict; his orientation toward finding physical solutions to problems, cemented by night after night of punching, kicking, and stabbing bloodthirsty fiends, had eventually let him accept the promise of a fight and dulled his anxieties over it. Every bit of new information, every tactic and weapon made available to him only served to fuel his hunger to meet in combat and get it over with.

Taking a deep breath and shaking out his arms from his shoulders down to the tips of his fingers, he asked, "Is this the calm before the storm?" He felt the electric tingle brought on by the thoughts of Systema and twin hooks and brutal hand-to-hand slowly dissipate, leaving him calm but still charged.

"It feels like it." The vampire took his hand from his pocket and let it brush against Sora's, noticing the feel of his skin before slowly taking hold of it and winding his fingers through the boy's, lacing their fingers together. He felt the Slayer squeeze, just tightly enough to get his attention, and then he did the same back. As they walked hand-in-hand through the sparse trees, Riku added, "I'd like to… take advantage of it. Enjoy it. While we're still pre-storm and all."

"Me, too. I'd hate to think that I wasted some of my la- well, _possibly_ last times with you arguing and being a Debbie Downer."

"I'm sure we have nothing to worry about," Riku assured him, his lips pressed thin as he gently tugged the brunet closer, unwilling to imagine a fate where they could lose each other so soon after coming together. "But a little domestic bliss is always nice. I'm not going to complain."

Sora nodded and made a pleased noise of agreement. "We can give each other massages, and I'll make you those disgusting blood smoothies that you like so much-"

"You were the one that made up the recipe in the first place. It's not my fault it's a delicious frosty treat-"

"- spend some time with the family, eat good food, have as much one-on-one time as possible…"

"And train," Riku reminded him glumly.

"I guess that's the one little bit of unpleasantness that can't be put off," the teen said with a sigh.

"That and slaying."

"Well, slaying is a constant. I've stopped distinguishing it from the rest of my life." He made a soft noise and elbowed Riku in the shoulder. "You really don't mind? Putting the whole… vampire issue on the backburner for a while, I mean. And other things, too, - anything that isn't an immediate concern. You're okay with it?"

"I am," Riku said with a sigh and a slow smile. "No sense in pushing it now, when there's so much else to worry about. We'll have time for that after this is all behind us. And maybe by then you'll have changed your mind," he added with a shrug and a wistful sigh.

"Maybe you'll have changed yours," the brunet said, emphasizing his words with a teasing poke to the vampire's chest.

"I thought we were putting this on the backburner?" the vampire questioned grumpily, once again ready to assume his post as the chief proponent for Slayer-vampirism.

"You started it," the teen remarked, immediately seizing Riku around the waist and enveloping him in a long hug to help them both focus on each other rather than any argument. Sora let his head rest on the vampire's chest, listening to the sound of his own breath and the whistling of air rushing past them.

Riku was a cold shelter from the cold wind that seemed to be blowing all the time now, careful to shift and turn in order to constantly keep his own body in place as a buffer for Sora. "Alright, alright. We leave this conversation here, and then after we teach the Palliata a thing or two, we'll pick it back up. No more talk of whether or not you get vamped until then. Right?"

"Right," the teen agreed, giving his boyfriend one sharp nod.

"For now we rally allies," the vampire began, taking in a deep breath as he did so, as if physically readying himself for the process of building up their side of the fight. He and Sora turned and started the long walk back toward home and the rest of the city, eyes constantly scanning the area for demons and vampires as they went.

"Already started," Sora proclaimed proudly. "Werewolves," he said with a grin.

"Great," Riku replied, unenthusiastic about who it was but thankful for the support nonetheless. "The naga owe you one, too."

"Mm." The Slayer didn't doubt that they would lend whatever help they could, or that their assistance would be anything less than essential. Still, he awkwardly remembered Taru's words about the warrior Anik's newfound respect- and possibly feelings- for him, making the prospect of revisiting the naga community less than thrilling. Also, there had been that promise of a feast, which he had reason to believe he would find much less appetizing than his nonhuman hosts.

"You can get that blood medicine, whatever that was. Great stuff, definitely something we'll need for you and Axel, if it works for werewolves." Riku's face suddenly brightened and he added, "Hey, maybe the warriors could show you some of their moves-"

"No, no, I think I'll be alright with just you guys. Besides, I'd rather not waste some of the clout I have with the naga on something that isn't absolutely necessary when I'm already going to be asking so much of them. While we're dealing with the Palliata, we need someone on the lookout for any other assassins that those crotchety old vamps have outsourced their killing to."

"Naga in the country, werewolves around the city?"

"Well, we can't have anyone with a snake tail slithering around downtown on patrol, can we? Also, do you think Axel might be able to round up a few helping hands from his bar?"

The vampire scoffed. "Are you kidding? They'll all be hiding in the sewers, if not outright fleeing town, as soon as they hear the Palliata are coming down. Even demons don't want to cross them. We're doing something _highly unusual_ for our kind, you see. Vampires do not do what we are planning on doing."

"But Slayers do," Sora said confidently.

Riku smiled and shook his head dubiously. "No, I don't even think Slayers seriously contemplate this. It's a rather tall order, even for the Chosen One, fighter of eternal evil and darkness and defender of old ladies on their way to bingo and ungrateful street urchins-"

"Well, that was one of the most disappointing interpretations of my career description I've ever heard. Also, very accurate. But the least you could do is to make it _sound_ less terrifying and thankless."

"Sorry. But anyway, abnormal or not, we don't exactly have any other option at this point. There is a real possibility of you becoming a vampire- last time I'm mentioning it, I swear," Riku rushed to add before the Slayer could open his mouth. "It's not exactly a huge shock that they want to stop you before you can ever reach that point. But even if we were totally agreed and settled on you staying human… well, they're obviously not taking the chance, as multiple assassination attempts have shown."

"Those turok-han made it pretty clear how they feel about me."

The two stopped as a morsus demon shambled out of a thorny briar several yards ahead, snapping its long, crocodile-like jaws threateningly in their direction as it reared up on its hind legs. While Riku pulled out a dagger and prepared to tell Sora to step back and let him handle it, the teen sighed and instead pulled out the first bladed weapon his hands could find and took a whack at a nearby tree, leaving a sizeable cut in the trunk before he sent it toppling with a well-placed kick.

The thick tree crashed down right on top of the demon, which had continued to hiss and snap at them as it flexed long, stinger-covered fingers, oblivious to what was going on until it had already happened.

"Not too bright," Riku noted as he gave the fallen tree's trunk a light kick. He walked its length, checking further up to make sure that the morsus was dead before returning to the brunet, who was busy checking the edge of his axe blade. "You, on the other hand, have surprised me with your ingenuity and efficiency. Very nice."

"That's what the training is for, right? To make me creative and economical with my killing- no more making small talk and quips and beating around the bush, while, um, beating them. Straight to the point now."

"You can still quip if the mood strikes you," the vampire assured him with a smile. "I just hope there are some sequoias around if and when you encounter the turok-han."

"Oh, I don't need a tree for them," Sora stated, slipping the axe back into its holder across his back as a cold arm looped around his waist and gently coaxed him back into motion, the two resuming their steady gait through the wooded area. "I'm not usually one for grudges, but I'm still very upset over what happened to my house. And that refrigerator," he said longingly. "Also, this hand-shaped scar that isn't fading nearly fast enough," the teen griped with a severe pout, rubbing at his throat grumpily. The brunet caught the vampire staring at him from the corner of his eye. "What's so fascinating? Do I have leaves in my hair?"

Riku shook his head and smiled. "No, I just like seeing you so… impassioned. So confident. I'm a little bit in awe of you, honestly. I mean, don't hate me, but in the beginning, I didn't even respect you. Hence the taunting and attempts to, er, kill you. I wanted to toy with you like something beneath me, because I thought you weak, and soft, and too constrained by your youth and virtuosity to do anything substantial."

"Ouch."

"None of which turned out to be true," he hurried to add. "I would be seriously worried for myself if we fought now. I'm glad that I was able to see you like this. Ah, growing into the type of warrior you were destined to be, but still being you."

Sora smiled to himself and leaned a little closer to the vampire's side. He held the silence for a few more seconds, letting the other man's words soak in before responding, not wanting to disturb the warm, tingly feeling that they were producing too soon. "Same here. Only you mostly had that whole warrior, killer thing down pat to begin with, so it was more about you becoming a nicer being, which I for one was happy to witness," the teen grinned.

The corners of Riku's mouth turned up briefly, but he doubted the Slayer had caught it in the dim moonlight. To compensate, he ran his thumb underneath the brunet's layers of shirts and jackets, searching for a sliver of bare skin along his hip to stroke. As Sora shivered, he felt the vampire squeeze him tighter, nearly pulling his smaller body off of the ground with the force of the one-armed hug before burying his face in cinnamon hair.

"For a couple of freaks, I think we're turning out alright," Sora continued brightly, earning himself a chuckle from his boyfriend that sparked a surge of warmth inside him, rushing all the way to the tips of his fingers and toes, making the cold seem irrelevant for the rest of the walk home.

* * *

**Super long. And hopefully fun (or at least worth the time?) to read to boot, since it's been a bit since the last update.  
****Oh, Zexion. Why can'ts I writes you right... **

**Please review and let me know what you think! I'm all ears. ****Or eyes, I guess. That would make more sense in this instance.**


	15. Aphelion

**Wowee. I had assumed I'd be able to bang out the end of this in the first couple weeks of classes, but apparently all of my professors decided to launch into midsemester workloads right off the bat. **

"_I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where._

_I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;_

_so I love you because I know no other way_

_than this: where I does not exist, nor you,_

_so close that your hand upon my chest is my hand,_

_so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep."_

_-Pablo Neruda, Sonnet 17_

* * *

"Have you ever thought about what you and Roxas will do? In the future, I mean."

The redhead glanced up from his place on the floor, stretched out and surrounded by the many parts of various weapons that he was fitting back together after a thorough cleaning. "How far into the future?"

"Like… like when you need to decide how you're going to keep on being together. Or not. Werewolves get old and die like humans."

"Yes," the werewolf drawled, "but much more slowly, so that's not an immediate concern of ours."

"You don't think about it?" Sora asked incredulously,

There was a beat of hesitation before he decided to be frank with the brunet. "We came to an arrangement a while ago."

"Seriously?" The teen's voice cracked slightly in his urgency and disbelief. "Well, what is it?"

Axel met Sora's gaze, set down the piece he had been fiddling with, and said, "I don't want you to think that what we decided should be the rule for you, or for anyone else. We know that you and Riku have been fishing around for solutions to your own dilemma, and I don't want you getting any smart ideas from us."

"What are you talking about?"

He sighed. "We _plan_ to have a good long run together. Werewolves age about one year for every ten that pass, in human terms, so I've got plenty of time. When I die, since I'll probably be first, Roxas says he'll end up following. Probably sooner rather than later," he said simply.

Sora sat in shocked silence, not certain that he had heard correctly.

"If something more… drastic happens," the werewolf continued, "like in the fight coming up, we'd do the same. I mean, even if something happened to Roxas I'd still want to be here for you," he rushed to add, "and I would, as long as you needed me. But other than that… you know."

"W-what about your bar?" Sora blurted out, too stunned to even attempt to come up with something more likely to tie the werewolf to life.

Axel cocked his head at the brunet, giving him a warm smile while also chuckling under his breath. "Hey, I like being around alcohol all night as much as the next guy, but I'm not going to let that be my reason for living. I'm just more attached to him than anything else, or everything else. I don't know how well I'd function without him at this point. That's probably not a healthy thing, and it sounds pathetic, but it's true and it's mutual."

"I'm… shocked? I think," the teen said with a nervous laugh, feeling dizzy from his friend's revelation.

"Yeah, I can see that. It's a really large commitment, I know. Extreme, definitely. A little selfish of us, too." He shrugged. "It's odd, you know. It definitely wasn't the sort of resolution I expected, but that's the course our feelings and discussions took. I just don't want you thinking that that's the way it _should_ be," he added in a stern tone. "Only what you and Riku choose is right for you. No one else can know what you guys need."

"I don't know if _we_ can even know that," the Slayer murmured. What Axel had said- and the prospect of losing him- was making an uncomfortable ache work through his chest and stomach; the teen found he would much rather discuss his own quandary now if doing so would cut the nauseous feeling sweeping over him.

The redhead smirked and shook his head. "You'll figure it out eventually. Give yourselves some time."

"We're not even close to agreeing on a course of action," Sora lamented, wishing he and Riku could be half as coordinated in their personal beliefs as they were now when it came to battle and strategy. He met the werewolf's eyes and sighed.

"Your opinions aren't set in stone," Axel reminded him. "Sure, you're both stubborn and convinced you're doing the right thing for the both of you, but you care enough about each other that something'll have to give, right?"

"Yeah. I just… well, like you said, I guess. I hate to say it, but I'm in the right here," Sora said with a sigh, which turned to a growl when Axel gave him a cheeky grin. "I'd be terrifying as a vampire. I can feel it! Like, a genuine turok-han-and-then-some. I've gotta give the Palliata their props. They may be pursuing me for mostly self-interested reasons, but the whole uber-powerful Slayer-vamp thing is a legitimate concern."

"They don't go around contracting assassins and summoning demons for the sheer thrill of it," the bartender added in way of agreement. "It's strictly banned for a reason. Nothing out there points to it being a good thing. Not that there's much out there," he added under his breath.

"Riku doesn't seem all too concerned with that. What I'm really surprised about is that Leon isn't blowing the whistle on it-"

"Well, with Leon… he's fairly hands-off as far as parenting goes, but I think he's getting pushed to his limit here. Y'know, all of this on top of the shit he already got from the Palliata for his own 'infractions'? It's rubbing him the wrong way. I get the feeling that he's been itching to bash some skulls for a while now but never had a cause, or was worried of upsetting their little life. Now both of those concerns are out of the equation, in a sense, at least."

"Do you feel like things are getting out of control?" the teen asked worriedly, his thin eyebrows drawn up together as a frown settled on his lips.

"Were they ever _in_ control?"

Sora hummed thoughtfully. "For a while there I was feeling like it."

"Probably just your weird Slayer mojo making you feel godlike again," the redhead mused as he continued tinkering with the tools and items littered on the floor.

"It does do that from time to time," Sora agreed. "Right now, I feel painfully normal, though. There aren't any superpowers to help me through relationship problems, that's for sure."

"Hey, the vampires don't get any of that, either. It's one area where the playing field is pretty even."

"Yeah." He ran a finger along the rim of his hot chocolate mug, collecting the foamy marshmallow deposited along the edge. He stared into the dark liquid as he added, "So… I could tell Riku was having a nightmare yesterday. He woke me up with all of his moving. I know he had one a few days before that, too. But before it was just, like, noticing that he was dreaming and upset, and now it's like full-fledged, sleep-talking, horrible, awful nightmares. I think maybe the strain is getting to him. They're only getting worse," he said in a solemn whisper, taking a long sip from his mug.

"Wouldn't they technically be daymares? And I see you've absorbed the vampiric tendency to stare at loved ones while they sleep," the redhead responded flatly, more interested in calibrating the new scope for Sora's crossbow.

"I only started watching him after I realized what was happening, not as a… consistent thing," Sora huffed. "I've seen the tear stains on his pillow in the evening," he said softly, his voice soft and sober as he recalled it.

Then he punched Axel in the shoulder when the redhead snorted at the mention of the vampire's emotional vulnerability. Hard.

"And don't tell him that I told you," the brunet warned. "Or Roxas. He never even mentioned it to _me_, so I doubt he'd be pleased if you knew."

The werewolf shrugged. "So he cries. So what."

"The 'so what' is that his dreams have been known to occasionally have a psychic element to them," Sora chided, feeling satisfied when Axel made a face of comprehension. "And he's not telling me about them. I'm worried that he's seeing something bad."

"Like?"

"Like him getting killed or something," the teen nearly shouted, his voice going up in pitch. "It would be so like him to do that. To try and keep me from worrying, since there's no way he'll let us fight without him."

"That's rough," the werewolf said quietly, clearing his throat and waiting silently for some response from the Slayer. When he received none, he continued. "It could be bad, but let's not jump to conclusions, either. Maybe he's not saying anything because it's just regular old bad dreams."

He just nodded absently and sipped on his hot chocolate. He didn't like that Riku had been keeping his worryingly frequent dreams a secret from him, but was even more frightened at what he might learn if he coaxed the vampire into describing them.

"Well… anyway, are you gonna go hash it out with him? To be a vampire or not to be?" Axel asked, hoping to turn the tide of conversation back away from any portents of doom for his best friend's boyfriend.

"No. We decided to wait until this ordeal is over with, first," the teen said with a shrug. "Then we'll get back to arguing over whether or not my corpse should reanimate after death."

"Provided you don't end up as a corpse over the course of this ordeal," Axel said seriously.

"Well, that's a contingency that hasn't been addressed yet. I don't know if we even have time to, honestly."

The two both slumped, neither really wanting to explore the morbid issue much further.

The redhead became involved in his work again, affixing wooden tips to ballistic knives, obviously torn between frowning at where their line of discussion had ended and smiling at the thought of the weapon he was creating. Sora could see that he was immensely pleased with the project and knew that he was especially proud of having obtained the imported knives at a fairly cheap price, with the intent of modifying all for combat with vampires. He had been ecstatic when he first detailed his plan to Sora, exclaiming that it would be 'like a little crossbow that you can hold in one hand, except you can stab things with it, too'.

To be honest, it made Sora a little giddy to think about it as well. His spirits were dampened when he suddenly imagined their opponents doing the same- creating something terrifyingly lethal, something they would probably never expect.

"Do you need any help with that?"

"Nah, it's… rather delicate."

"Oh. So you don't want my butterfingers messing it all up," the brunet noted sourly.

"Hey, be realistic, Sora," the werewolf said as he twisted at the waist a bit to better see the teen. "You're great in battle, especially after all that training. You do some awesome stuff- in the moment. _Outside_ of that moment, you're pretty average in terms of inadvertently breaking things. Actually, your strength might make you worse," he said with a growing furrow of his brow, apparently coming to that realization as he spoke the words.

"Thanks," Sora groaned, although he internally acknowledged Axel's claims. More than once he'd cut into the redhead's profits by shattering bottles of liquor while simply trying to pick them up, he dropped glasses so frequently that all he'd had in his home were cheap plastic cups, and more advanced technology seemed to spite him. "Perhaps I shouldn't be handling the spring-loaded knife," he finally agreed.

"Thatta boy," the man replied absently, his attention focused on the blade he was holding at eye level and surveying every inch of. A minute later he finished with it, and before starting on the next he said, "If you want, you can check out the chakrams I got. They're in that box over there." He jerked his head in the direction of a cardboard box patterned with numerous stamps and ink markings in various languages.

Sora carefully set his mug down and proceeded to pick his way across the weapon strewn floor. Within the cardboard box there was a smaller wooden chest, taller than it was wide or deep, engraved and painted a dark teal. He lifted the lid and warily pulled out a small stack of the rings.

"It's like a Frisbee," the Slayer said in wonder as he got them into the light, tilting and turning them so that they shined and glistened. Each small ring was flat and silver, the band itself only about two inches wide. "Only so much less kid friendly," he commented, appreciatively running a finger along the razor sharp outer edge, which occasionally swooped out to make a curved point, leaving the chakram with four intimidating tips.

"Chakrams can take a human head clean off, easy. They weren't originally created with vampires in mind, but I got hold of someone that could make them and placed a special order for increased thickness for cutting power and durability. I tested one out on a vamp yesterday. Works like a dream."

Sora continued to examine the chakrams curiously, getting a feel for their weight. "I can't wait to see what they're like for myself. I'm sure Riku will want to hog them all," he chuckled. The vampire preferred decapitation to staking when fighting other vampires- due to it being far easier to accidentally fall on his own stake than to trip and accidentally sever his own neck, he said- but often had to go with the stakes out of convenience, as axes and swords were typically harder to hide when patrolling the streets. "These are so conveniently sized," the Slayer almost cooed.

"I know," the werewolf agreed, his tone full of fondness. "I think I'm in love with them. If it weren't more effective for me to fight as a wolf, I'd be all over those things in a fight."

"Thanks," the teen murmured with a half smile. He shrugged as he stared at the floor, glancing from one piece of the deadly arsenal to the next. "You didn't have to do all of this."

The redhead snorted. "This isn't just about you anymore, Sora. Of course, I'd still be doing this even if it was. I'm a time-tested, certifiably awesome friend," he muttered, leaning over to the coffee table to sip soda through a straw, which allowed him to keep working on the sensitive task at hand.

"You really are. Most people would have recognized the trouble that being best friends with the Slayer could bring and gotten the hell out. I mean, every horror imaginable basically wants to destroy me and anyone around me. But you saved me _and_ stuck around," Sora said cheerily as he flopped back onto the couch and grabbed one of the ballistic knives from its small crate to examine it. It was surprisingly heavy, and the serrated edge of the blade was impressive enough as an anti-vampire weapon without the stake tip even being affixed yet.

"Well, when you say it like that, it just makes me sound stupid for not ditching you."

"I think it makes you sound brave, and cool, and big-hearted."

Axel smiled to himself, and paused in his fiddling with the blades and wooden spikes.

"I don't know what I'd do without you. I don't know what I would have _done_ without you. You've been there for me for the longest, and stuck your neck out for me the most, and all without getting anything in return." The teen clambered halfway off of the couch, his legs still wedged between the arm and the seat cushion, so that he could hug the werewolf from behind. He wrapped his arms around broad shoulders and hid his face in layers of vibrant red hair, smiling as he felt a hand reach up to lay on his upper arm.

"You're no leech. You helped me out all the time. I may have helped you live longer as a Slayer, but you helped me live longer as a demon-bar owner. Both of our kinds are notoriously short lived and tend to die violently at the hands of rage filled, occasionally drunk demons," he chuckled. "I don't regret a single thi-"

Sora's head shot up at the sudden whizzing sound and the alarming thud of an impact across the room. "Oh, Axel… I… I'm, uh…"

He and the redhead both stared at the blade lodged in the wall of Axel's living room, it having embedded itself perilously close to both his TV and a-surprisingly lovely and artfully rendered- landscape that Roxas had painted for him. The force of its collision had caused a crack to run both above and below it, and had a two-by-four not happened to stand in the way, it was clear that it might have proceeded through to the next room.

As Sora made a quiet noise of anxious apology and unclenched his hand to stare at the hilt of the ballistic knife, silently cursing both it and his inattentiveness, Axel turned his head just far enough to give the Slayer a hard look.

"Maybe you should leave until I'm do-"

"Yeah, I think I will," the Slayer rushed to agree.

* * *

Sora's eyes took a moment to adjust to the bright fluorescent lighting of the supermarket.

He had spent an hour at a small café that offered public computers and free internet, going in with the intent of catching up on all of the things people his age were usually interested in. After fifteen minutes of reading headlines regarding current issues that he was clueless about and seeing the names of celebrities that he didn't recognize, the brunet had settled for playing solitaire. He finished a sandwich and some soup and bought some kind of frozen coffee drink, mostly because it was mocha flavored, which he had recently discovered was quite good.

As soon as the sun finally set he took to the streets and the nearby woods, spending hours checking through places that he knew to attract vampires and demons. With a few successful kills and one life-saving chalked up, he decided to stop by the grocery store before heading back to the apartment to see if Riku wanted to patrol for a bit as well.

As he meandered over to the produce section, he thought back to certain moments during fights on this patrol, breaking down the movements into things that he did right and things that could use some work.

He was getting better with his hands. Thanks to intensive instruction from vampires that had seen enough deconstructed bodies to know them inside and out, he knew exactly where to strike to end a fight quickly, to ensure the most pain. And his reflexes had been honed, letting him react quickly and precisely.

The blow to that vamp's shoulder that had rendered his entire arm useless? Totally awesome. There had been a true feeling of satisfaction that accompanied the sensation of stone-like muscle and bone giving way underneath his fist. It was almost easy now, dealing with these local baddies, and it gave the Slayer some reassurance about the approaching showdown.

Sora cracked his neck as he sifted through apples and pears, checking ripeness and condition. He smiled to himself in the cereal aisle as he thought of the things he would tell Riku later tonight- how the first vampire he'd run into had grabbed the nearest object to use as a weapon, and it had been an umbrella. That made for an interesting fight. And one of the vampires had even tried to convince him that he was Dracula. Sora hadn't heard that one in a while.

As he waited in the express line behind another person buying a handful of items, the brunet scanned the magazine racks. He worked his jaw back and forth as he read headlines about musicians he would have cared about if he had time to listen to the radio and stars' relationship issues that were almost fascinating in their over-dramaticized tediousness.

He scoffed as he saw a cover dominated by actors from a vampire romance movie and flipped the magazine over so that the ad on the back was visible instead.

"Yeah, I hate that movie, too," the girl behind the register said with a wrinkled nose. "It's like, the new fad or whatever, though."

"Oh, r-really?" Sora was caught off guard by the human interaction. His training had increased his strength and agility and improved his reflexes, but days on end with nothing but Riku's family for company had let his social skills deteriorate. Not that he had gotten out much before, he noted glumly.

"You're that kinda weird guy from school, right?" she asked as she passed the box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch over the scanner.

"Yeah, I guess so," he answered with a chuckle. He had thought she looked familiar. Now that she mentioned it, he realized that he remembered seeing her often across rooms and cafeterias. Her hair was a very pretty shade of red and reminded him a little of raspberries, but he wasn't sure if that was coming from perusing the produce section for so long.

"I don't see you around school anymore," she said with a flash of a frown. "Did something happen? Oh, sorry if I'm being really rude," she added quickly, her cheeks turning pink for a moment.

"No, it's okay. I missed too many days of school, that's all."

"I wanted to make sure it wasn't because of… the way some people were."

"Nah, I- oh, wait! Wasn't your boyfriend- yeah, he was the one that wrote that stuff on my locker that time," the brunet said with a nod. He recalled more about her now- Kairi Pitkins, or something like that, who always seemed to be surrounded by a flock of other girls and once came to school dressed as a dehydrated paopu fruit for Halloween. They were in the same year but didn't share any classes that he could remember- not that he was often present for them.

"_Ex_-boyfriend," she clarified, huffing sharply as she finished ringing up his groceries. "He was a total douche. Sorry for how mean he was to you. If it's any consolation, he's a jerk to everyone, girlfriends included."

"It doesn't bother me so much anymore," he shrugged. "Sorry he was a jerk to you, too."

"No, I should have realized it sooner," she said with a smile. "My fault."

"Liking someone tends to make you gloss over their imperfections."

"Yeah, well, I must have been slapping on layers of shellac with that guy." She shook her head. "You've got some dirt or something on your chin."

"Oh, do I?" he asked quickly, nervous laughter coming out spontaneously as he rubbed his face furiously, worried it might be dried blood. "I was just… camping. And stopped by for some food. On my way back to camp. I had to go home to feed my fish real quick, and now I'm headed back. To… the camp."

She nodded and smiled, and Sora felt his face burn, thankful that neither Riku nor Roxas were here to witness this and later use it to tease him over his slow wittedness when it came to fabricating lies.

Though his receipt had printed, she held onto it. After peering around to see if any other customers were headed to the checkout line and being reasonably convinced that she could take a break, the redhead leaned over the counter and grabbed a pen out of her apron pocket. "There were rumors that your house was the one that burned down a few weeks ago, and that you were living there alone to begin with."

He nodded. "For once, the rumors are true," he said with a close-lipped smile.

"Are you, like… living somewhere?"

Sora started as soon as he caught the meaning in her hesitant words. "Yes! Yes, don't worry about that. I, uh, I've been staying with my boyfriend lately, actually," he explained, an unexpected feeling of pride and something like relief welling up in his stomach and putting a genuine smile on his face as he mentioned his and Riku's relationship, however anonymously and indirectly. This was the first time he had been able to reveal it to anyone outside of his tiny circle, and it felt surprisingly good. "And his family."

"Oh, well, that's great!" she said with a half-hop from behind the counter. "Um, I'm glad that you're not, like, on the streets or anything. But still, just in case you ever need it, I f-figure I should…" Kairi trailed off as she started scribbling something on the back of his receipt. "This is my number and address. I know you're set and all, but hang onto this anyway, okay? Just in case, like I said."

The Slayer took the slip of paper when she offered it and slowly turned it over in his hands. "Thanks," he murmured, biting his lip. He wanted to tell her how nice it was to not feel totally uncared for by his peers, and that it was a gesture he would never forget, but he figured it might lead to him shedding some not-so-manly tears and winding up with a runny nose. "I mean, hopefully I'll never need to bug you, but I appreciate it."

"It's cool. My grandparent's house burned down when I was little," the girl informed him, playing with the ends of her hair as she spoke. "I remember how hard it was for them to rebuild after that. Losing everything is just devastating… but you seem to be doing pretty well," she observed, pointing to his outfit.

"Oh, y-yeah," the brunet laughed. "Well, this ensemble is thanks to my boyfriend's wallet and sense of style, not mine."

"He has good taste."

"He does. Thanks." He rubbed the back of his head, suddenly feeling the awkward in the air. "I hope you have a good weekend. When does your shift end?"

"Midnight."

"So, not much longer. That's good. Just be careful on the way to your car and stuff, okay?"

"No worries. I have pepper spray on me, like, all the time." She held up one arm, showing off the pink tube that dangled from a stretchy bracelet on her wrist. "Also, I take an MMA class with my mom. Rapists and murderers have nothing on me."

"Good to hear," he said with a grin. "I hope I see you again."

"Me, too. In _school_," she smiled. "And watch your back out there."

* * *

The Slayer smiled back as he turned to leave. "You, too."

"Are you doing the laundry?" Sora set the hamper from his and Riku's room down on the floor, his eyes never leaving the blonde hovering over the washing machine.

"Yes."

"But… you never do the laundry." The teen frowned, curious and a little suspicious at the out of character action. He also felt a twinge of pity as he saw the vampire removing clumps of wet dryer sheets from the wash.

"Do you want some help?" he offered with a weary sigh.

"No, these have special care instructions," the vampire was murmuring, mostly to himself, as he picked out each article and checked the tag.

"Then it's probably too late for whatever this was," Sora commented, grimacing as he lifted up a battered grey shirt with blotches of white and peachy pink dotting it from top to bottom.

"Oh... that was Riku's," Roxas said in an urgent whisper, biting his lip. He looked at Sora with a pleading in his eyes that surprised the Slayer.

"I'll tell him that I accidentally put my bloody towel on top of it and couldn't get the stains out." He smiled and crumpled up the shirt into a ball before sticking it under his arm and resolving to dispose of it later, earning himself a relieved nod from the vampire.

"I'm new to this." He said it like it was an apology.

"Why are you doing laundry in the first place?" Sora was perplexed, but he was getting used to the blonde vampire's tendency to perform tasks that he wasn't accomplished at in the slightest. First cooking, now cleaning. Next would probably be gardening, and then feng shui.

Roxas avoided his eyes, fixing his gaze instead on the brunet's blood-stained and hole-riddled shirt. "Did you get _mauled_ while you were patrolling?"

"Don't try and change the subject," Sora said sternly, hoping that the blonde was too absorbed in his own concerns to notice his blush. He shifted and crossed his arms, fearful that the vampire would somehow figure out that the majority of the holes and tears in his slaying shirt had been left by Riku after their midnight patrol together, when the adrenaline rush and riled emotions had boiled over and led to acts of extreme indecency occurring in the back of the vampire's rarely-used car.

"I want to be useful."

Sora cocked his head to the side, a smile born of confusion coming on uncontrollably. "You are useful. You do all kinds of stuff already."

"Not like you and Axel do. Or like Demyx and Leon and Riku do." The blonde moved slowly as he placed articles one at a time into the washing machine, his shoulders stooped. "I'm not the same."

The brunet stood silently for a brief moment before settling down on the laundry room floor, cross-legged and concerned. He patted the dirty floor next to him, and to his mild shock, the vampire sat down as well.

"It seems like everyone else is on the same page. You, Riku, Axel, Leon, Demyx. I don't want to be left behind."

Sora wasn't sure if the look in Roxas' eyes was blame, but he did feel a pang of something like guilt for making the blonde feel as though his family was getting pulled away from him. "You won't be. You'd never be. Look, I'm not even that familiar with the whole workings of this family unit, but I can tell that Leon loves you and cares about you and would never abandon you. Demyx would never want to see you hurt, and Riku would go crazy if he didn't have you to conspire with and complain to. I think you're as tight as a family can get for vampires."

The vampire groaned softly and pulled up his legs so that he could wrap his arms around them, compacting himself into a tight, huddled form.

"I feel like you're pretty much… on the same page to begin with, anyway," Sora continued awkwardly. "No, you're not the most enthusiastic about it, but you've always been supportive enough and want the same things."

"It's not like I haven't tried. I'm still trying. I'm just slower," Roxas ground out, grabbing the sides of his head and curling his hands into his hair. "I don't know how Riku did it so fast, so right, when I can't even-"

"Riku? Are you kidding me? There were so many times when he said completely horrifying things without realizing it, and did all sorts of creepy stuff. It took a substantial amount of time for him to be how he is now. You shouldn't worry about that."

"I don't know. I hate drinking animal blood. I hate that it tastes wrong and it makes me feel sick," the blonde admitted. Sora was surprised to see clear, red-tinged tears welling up in the vampire's eyes. "And I think Riku thinks I'm, well, further along, I guess, and that I'm making all of these changes to be better and everything-"

"You are," Sora insisted. "You wouldn't be having this difficulty if you weren't. You're doing a good job, too. And, hey, it's worth it, right? Aren't you happier now? With Axel?"

"That's true," the blonde said with a thoughtful smile. "But the things I have to do to keep that going are hard. Or maybe they aren't. I'm the only one having so much trouble with it, after all."

"I'm sure you're not," the teen disagreed, hesitantly putting a hand on the blonde's shoulder. "What about Leon?"

"Leon's so antisocial he hardly even leaves to hunt anymore. He'd rather stay in and eat bagged blood. The donated kind."

"Well, wouldn't you like that better than animal blood?" Sora asked brightly.

"I don't like it all divided out. No plasma or platelets. Plus, the chemical taste is disgusting."

"Couldn't you find… I don't know," Sora sighed, not believing the conversation had come down to his suggesting this, "someone that might be willing to, like, give you blood in exchange for money or something."

"That's so reminiscent of a feeder den," the vampire said with disgust, although he didn't look entirely opposed to the option. "I just… I haven't had to give anything up in a really long time. I spent most of my time traveling alone so I wouldn't have to accommodate others. I like being myself."

"You'll still be you in all the ways that matter," the brunet assured him. "It's a matter of giving up, er, certain habits and notions in exchange for something better. You've got a family that cares about you and someone that wants to live and die at your side now. It calls for some readjustment, which I know can be weird and difficult at first, but it's worth it."

"You have experience with this?" Roxas asked wryly.

The Slayer gave a bark of a laugh and then sighed. "This doesn't all go one way, yeah. I had to get my readings in order again for Riku and the rest of you. Leon stealing blood from banks that already have shortages? Not quite my idea of the best thing ever, but I know it's better than the alternative and already a big compromise coming from a vampire. Accepting pasts filled with- in a human's eyes, at least- horrific actions? Hard, but manageable. Getting over the weirdness that my boyfriend's current dad is his past lover? Having to cut garlic from my diet because you all give me that look? Practically becoming nocturnal to fit in with you guys and be more involved? Not things that came easily, or that I would have done on my own, but necessary concessions to make things work."

"What way do we look at you?" the vampire asked sharply.

"Like I'm about to crack open a can of tuna and leave it on the counter for a hot afternoon," Sora said defensively. "And no one says anything, but I see the looks."

"It's just an aggressive smell. We can handle it, though- I didn't gag once when you were using it that time at your house, remember? And I was in close proximity."

"Oh, so you have to make an effort not to gag around it. That makes me feel _much_ more comfortable with using it in your home."

"It's your home, too," he reminded the Slayer, who was startled silent by the statement coming out of Roxas' mouth, of all people. "So no, you don't have to give it up. We will deal with an occasional smell. Of course, you do need to be moderate with it. And yes, tuna- that's just pungent. I can't say asparagus is very pleasing, either. Humans think blood is disgusting, but they'll put that in their mouths?"

Sora grinned, still feeling a satisfying warmth from the vampire's words, as the blonde continued on, naming a dozen or so foods and ingredients that he had discovered to be unpleasant to the nose- particularly some of Axel's favourites, like curry and steamed cabbage.

"And I never considered how strange it might be to Axel… about Leon," the blond mentioned after he had voiced all of his problems with humans' and their tastes.

"I doubt he cares," Sora said flatly. At Roxas' alarmed look, he added, "He already knows, and if he hasn't mentioned it to you or me, I'm sure he already came to terms with it and it doesn't bother him. He loves you too much to let anything like that get in between you guys anyway."

"You think?" The blonde's tone was mocking, as if it was obvious, a matter of fact that Sora would have to be blind to miss, but his eyes met the Slayer's with hopeful questioning.

"After the talk I had with him earlier tonight, I'm certain. He would do anything for you." At Roxas' reassured smile, the brunet continued. "So make sure you stay on the right path. Only use that commitment for good. Or I _will_ be out for your blood," he added with a stern look and a stiff nod. "He's devoted to you with so much dedication that it alarms me a bit, honestly, and if you ever betray that, I won't think twice about slowly cleaving you in half with the dullest knife I can find before boiling whatever's left of you in holy water."

Sora took a deep breath after his declaration, his eyes still firmly trained on the blonde's. Rather than the reaction he had expected- some kind of disgust or a haughty dismissal, maybe even a bit of fear- he found the vampire was giving him a look closer to appreciation or respect.

Roxas exhaled sharply, a loud stream of air passing through his lips. "I wish you'd stop giving me reasons to grudgingly admire you."

The Slayer let his head tip back, a few irrepressible laughs escaping as he covered his face with his hands. "I should have known that death threats were the way into your good graces. This would have been useful information like three months ago."

"That's only part of it," the vampire said with some amusement. He waited for Sora to calm back down before continuing more seriously. "He's the first person I've cared about in a long, long time. Maybe the first, truthfully. Even as a human, I was never very… anyway, I like knowing that you care about him that strongly, too. Listening to you- it was like hearing my doppelganger."

"The _non_-evil kind of doppelganger, right?" he asked hopefully.

"Of the two of us, I think that would probably be me."

"Not for long, if you keep dragging me down into your dark world of secretly dumping the corpses of massacred clothing where they won't be found and then lying to my boyfriend to keep him from tearing apart the house looking for 'that one grey linen button-down- _yes_, the one I like to wear with that ivory scarf that I got last week- no, it's _not_ just like the fifty other grey ones I have- because it has the perfect amount of green undertones, which is so hard to find in that shade and it really helps flatter my eyes'," Sora said in a very accurate imitation of the silver-haired vampire's annoyed and overly serious tone when it came to his favourite articles of clothing getting called into question or going missing, which had happened with greater frequency since Sora's arrival.

Even Roxas couldn't hide his delight at the spot-on teasing of his brother. "If you promise to keep frequently destroying the meticulous order of his closet and getting his stuff wrinkly, I think I'll have a much easier time with this period of adjustment."

"Oh, well, I'd be doing that inadvertently anyway," the brunet admitted, "but I'll definitely go the extra mile if that's what you need, Roxas. That's what semi related by, um, _something_… it's what brothers-in… not _law_ but more like… well, that's what we do," he finished simply. "I'm not too sure on the mechanics of this," the Slayer said while gesturing in a circle between himself and the blonde.

The vampire shrugged and stuck out his lips in a frown that suggested he didn't much care. "The particulars aren't worth worrying about. We're on the same side, which is what matters."

Sora was pleased to hear Roxas say that, and let him know with a beaming smile as he stood up and left to quickly hide the remains of his boyfriend's much-loved shirt before Riku noticed it was missing.

* * *

"What's going on?" Sora asked as they entered the living room to find everyone present. Leon and Riku were hunched over the kitchen island, while Demyx and Zexion sat close together on the couch, their hands clasped together. Cloud Strife was fixing himself a cup of tea with a healthy dose of sugar and honey, and Axel was leaning against the back of the couch, looking disheveled.

"It's about time that we start getting ready," Leon explained softly. His eyes turned briefly to Cloud, who nodded and took a quick sip of his drink before hurrying to the eldest vampire's bedroom.

"Why? What happened?" Roxas asked urgently as he slipped out from behind Sora. "Why are you here so early?"

"My bar's cleared out," Axel said shortly. "A demon with teleportation popped in, said he'd gotten word of several members of the Palliata headed this way. Everyone bolted."

"They're here?" Sora wanted to cry out at the suddenness of it all.

"No," Riku answered quickly. "Not yet. They were somewhere outside of Destati at the time, so they'll have to stop for the day. The distance is too great for them to cover it all tonight, but come nightfall, we'll have to be watching for them. I already warned the naga to be on the lookout for anything that might approach. They were very enthusiastic about supporting us. _You_, actually," he amended, sending the Slayer a pointed look.

Axel looked up. "And I let the pack know. Ihsan's got a perimeter set up around the city and a few patrols in the surrounding areas for any auxiliary forces the Palliata might have gathered up. He and a number of others will be waiting for my call if we need backup badly, wherever the showdown ends up being."

"So, we should probably head out somewhere soon, then?" Sora questioned, slowly gazing around the room to meet each pair of eyes briefly.

"Now," Leon agreed immediately, surprising Sora, Zexion, and Demyx. "There's an old monastery toward the mountains-"

"Yensid," Cloud clarified for the rest as he emerged from the hall, bags in hand. He waited awkwardly at the edge of the room with his things gathered, his wide, slightly panicked eyes interested only in the brunet vampire.

Leon nodded and beckoned the blonde to follow him out of the apartment, taking some of the load from the teacher and pulling him close to his side as they walked. The two shut the door behind them, with the eldest vampire giving them all a concerned glance just before it closed.

"Where's Mr. Strife going?" Sora asked.

"Leon's taking him back to his house until dawn. Then Cloud's leaving for a very nice, very relaxing stay at a five star hotel far, far away. He can come back once this is over," Riku explained. "Neither wants to run the risk of the Palliata finding out his connection to Leon- if they don't already have some idea of it- and trying to hunt him down as a hostage. If he's far enough away, they won't have time to get their hands on him before we're through with them."

Riku smiled encouragingly, but Sora noticed very other face in the room turned down to the floor, staring at the carpet.

Demyx's voice came from across the room, just above a whisper. "Why didn't Leon tell me so that we could do that with you, Zex-"

"Because I do not need it," the young warlock protested, his words short and staccato. "I can at least protect myself with magic. I'll be safe enough to stay with you."

While the two bickered quietly, Sora found Riku's side and leaned against it, his legs feeling suddenly woozy, as though he had just run a mile uphill. "We're leaving now?"

"It sounds like it. We don't want collateral damage, or them using all of the humans around to their advantage-"

"They think you'd all care?"

"They _know_ that _you_ would," the vampire whispered. "Slayers are like superheroes, and it's very easy to know what will pull a good guy's strings- a threat against numerous innocents, or even one very special victim. Which is why Cloud has to leave."

Each couple in the room kept to itself, all talking in hushed tones about what was happening and what they needed to do. Sora sought out a bar of chocolate to nibble on, the usually comforting treat tasting bland and chalky, too thick and gummy in his dry mouth. He drank water, but even that still left his stomach unsettled and his mouth with a bad taste.

As soon as Leon returned, there was a brief clamor as they all gathered around him at the front door.

"The Yensid Monastery," the vampire said tersely. "We leave for it as soon as possible. Take necessities, hide valuables, sweep anything they could use against us. Half an hour."

With that, he went to his room to do exactly as he had advised, leaving the rest of them to quickly gather necessary items and hide important ones from the inevitable search of the apartment.

* * *

"Should I leave it?" Sora asked. He looked at nothing in particular as he did, and for a moment Riku assumed it was just a thought that had slipped out. He soon noted the silver pendant and chain that the teen was fingering and realized it may have been a question directed at him.

"Why would you do that?" Riku asked back, still occupying himself with placing hastily folded clothing into the duffel bag on the bed until he understood how to handle his boyfriend's dilemma.

"I dunno," the teen replied sullenly, now staring at the crown as he ran his fingers over its curved front, leaving smudges and fingerprints across the surface. "It seems too special. It's practically all I have left from my house… it's the only thing I have from my parents, that's for sure. What if I lose it in the fight? And if something happens to me, I want there to be something of mine for-"

"Take it with you," Riku stated abruptly, his gaze now fixed on the Slayer in a no-nonsense manner. He had stopped in the middle of closing a drawer filled with immaculately folded shirts, one hand still pressing the clothing down for a better fit as it slid shut.

"What?" Sora glanced up at him immediately.

"Take. It. With. You," the vampire repeated slowly, his teeth showing with each word. "Consider it another incentive to not let anything happen to yourself," he added quietly, resuming his chore of picking clothes and other essentials to take with, while sorting valuables into the metal chest to be placed in the basement training room.

When he looked back over at the brunet, Riku noticed him smiling softly and realized that the teen's cobalt eyes had never left him; he had watched silently, unknown to the vampire, who had kept sifting and sorting and packing.

"What?" he questioned accusatorially, eyes narrowing as he wondered what the teen had found amusing in staring at him.

"Nothing," Sora said hastily. He made his way over to the dresser where Riku was. "Maybe you can pick something to wear, too?"

"What?" the vampire asked again, but this time with general confusion.

"Something special that you don't want to get lost," the brunet clarified. He nodded toward the small jewelry box in the chest, already packed away for safe keeping with all of the pictures and trinkets from his walls and desk.

Riku only hesitated for a moment before pulling the box out and lifting the lid.

Sora's eyes eagerly searched over each object as it was brought out, only touching what was placed in his hands. He hung on every word of explanation.

First there was the signet ring from Sephiroth, given to him after he killed his first Slayer. Then the brightly colored, almost glowing array of magical stones reluctantly given to him by one of Leon's longtime admirers, who had been a skillful ninja before turning and was considered to be one of the stealthiest vampires around, when she kept her mouth shut. He also let Sora handle a couple of tarnished silver buttons that were all that remained of any of the clothes that he had as a human.

There was a delicate chain and cross that had been a gift from his parents and godmother, who he barely remembered now, as well as an engraved band that featured a small pearl, which he had received from his aunt Lulu shortly after turning one-hundred. There was also a set of gold cufflinks that he grudgingly admitted to Sora were stolen from the body one of the Slayers that he had killed; these were set aside.

Finally, Riku removed a ring held on a length of thin chain. He slipped the ring off of the necklace and offered it to the teen, who took it solemnly. He rolled the band across his palms, feeling the texture of the edges and its comforting weight. The lion-like creature it displayed was not precisely or flawlessly rendered, but had rough edges along the sweeping mane and many small scratches. Still, it was obviously loved, worn smooth in some areas by years- or decades, or centuries- of wear.

"It's beautiful," Sora murmured, running his thumb over the silvery surface. "It looks like the thing that Leon wears."

"It came with it, a part of a set that Seifer gave him, which he gave to me not so long ago. You like it?" the vampire asked with a grin, pleased by the brunet's fascination and reverence for the small object.

"Of course I do! It's perfect. Suits you and him both. Why haven't I seen you wearing it?"

Riku placed his palms flat on the desk next to the dresser and leaned onto it, noticing the teen's gaze shifting to his arms as the muscles flexed while he stretched. "I don't know. I was touched when Leon gave it to me, but it didn't feel right, wearing it. Every time I put it on I felt like it didn't belong to me." He shrugged and stood up straight, shaking his head. "It was one of the most meaningful things that Leon ever owned. Why should I get to wear it? I don't think I've earned the right to."

"You have, and I think you should," Sora whispered as he took one of Riku's hands and slipped the ring onto his finger. "He gave it to you for a reason, whether or not you get it yet."

"Hopefully our story doesn't turn out like the last one that this ring was involved with," the vampire said with a soft smile.

Sora rolled his eyes and grabbed his boyfriend's wrists to pull him close. "It won't. And because I know that it's precious to you _and_ Leon, you definitely aren't going to let yourself get too hurt to bring it back safely."

"Likewise," Riku replied with a grin, tapping his finger against the silver pendant hanging over the teen's chest. "But seriously, don't make me worry any more than I already am. My old heart can't take it."

"Oh, you don't want to bring up your 'old heart' unless you're in the mood for a plethora of jabs about how old the rest of you is," the Slayer teased.

"Fine with me," he replied, pressing against Sora and dipping his head until his face was brushed by cinnamon colored spikes.

"Are you feeling okay?" the teen asked with nervous laughter. "I've never heard you brush off a joke about your age."

"Maybe I'm just getting used to your incessant mockery," the vampire supplied with a soft smile. Then he swallowed uncomfortably. "We need to focus. We don't have much time," he said stiffly, abruptly separating from the brunet and returning to the task at hand.

Sora watched him a moment longer, feeling uncertain about what had just happened. He absently sorted through his own possessions, which were few in comparison, before simply throwing off his tattered slaying clothes as he should have earlier and changing into something clean. With his own clothes packed, his few meaningful items on his person, and the bulk of his laundry and replaceable goods left to their fate, there was nothing left to do but wait.

* * *

"It's too bad that I didn't protect the apartment," Sora said with a soft pout as they finally reached the end of the winding, bumpy, pothole-riddled trail and the vehicle's engine was finally silenced.

"Not your fault," his boyfriend reassured him as they began unloading bags to carry for the rest of the trek. "It's pretty hard for house protection to be established by one human living in a place full of, and owned by, a bunch of vampires. If it was going to happen at all, it certainly wouldn't be in such a short period of time."

"They would have caused more havoc in the city anyway. Leaving was a necessity from the beginning," Leon added gruffly, shouldering much of the weaponry without the slightest indication of hindrance.

"But at least we wouldn't have to worry about them riffling through everything," Zexion said.

"Everything that could have led to Cloud was taken care of. Even if they were to track his scent, he'll be long gone before they find his house. All the important stuff is dealt with." Axel grinned at Roxas as the two took on the task of carrying their luggage up the remainder of the hills.

They picked through the narrow trail, the vampires preceding the rest of the group in order to clear any less visible threats, like loose rubble and the giant spider webs that spanned across the path. Sora yelped when something in the darkness fell onto his head- shivers ran up and down his spine as he imagined it to be any number of creepy crawlies- sending the rest of the party into defense mode until he cleared up the confusion.

By the time they neared the summit, Sora was thoroughly worn. He could, however, understand why Leon had chosen the location. They had the high ground and could use it to spot incoming enemies. It was a reasonable distance from dense civilization without being in the middle of nowhere. It also had the Yensid Monastery, which, aside from being beautiful- if creepy- looked as though it could provide decent defense.

"Before we sleep, we all need to know the layout," Leon warned loudly, leading the small troop up the last steep, thinly wooded hill.

They reached the monastery proper and set down their bags. As Leon and Riku each went a different way around the entirety of the building to check for any new damage or danger since the last inspection, the rest began undoing the numerous blocks and locks left by both city officials, to keep vagabonds out, and Leon and Cloud, to keep the hideout from being compromised.

As soon as the two vampires returned from their search, satisfied with the condition of the monastery, they took up most of the luggage and headed inside, leaving the rest to collect what was left and follow.

The Slayer walked slowly through the vast stone building's wide central doors, his face turned up to the high ceiling- the night sky was visible through large holes where parts of it had collapsed, crushing anything beneath with rubble and blocks of weathered, grey stone. Many of the stained glass windows were broken, holding only jagged edges around the frame, and a dank, musty smell permeated the entire building.

Sora paused before a large stone-walled ring in the middle of the great main room of the monastery, surprised to look down inside and see the faint reflection of himself and the stars in dark water. "A well? Inside?"

"Crafty monks," Axel whistled. "I'd have done one inside, too. Having to walk outside for water all the time would blow."

Riku soon joined them at the edge of the large well, having finished sorting out the bags. "Don't fall in," the vampire warned. He pushed lightly at the upper portion of the low stone wall that surrounded it, the bricks crumbling and falling down into the water below.

"Super old," Demyx chimed in from a safe distance, one arm thrown protectively in front of Zexion as if the human might trip and stumble forward ten feet and into the well.

"Let's go find a room. I want to go ahead and set up some protective alarm spells before morning," the young man said wearily, tugging on the mohawked vampires sleeve until he accompanied him down one of the two shadowy corridors. As they went, the two magically inclined members of the group lit sconces along the walls for the convenience of the rest.

"Where will we be staying?" Sora asked quietly.

"Whichever sunlight-proofed rooms the others haven't already taken," the vampire replied with a shrug. "Leon said when he and Cloud came through a couple of weeks ago they fixed up the nicer rooms for habitation, just in case. Blocked the windows, left some air mattresses, stocked some basics… sprayed for bugs," he added with a knowing smile, throwing an arm around the Slayer.

"Thank goodness," the brunet said in relief.

"You're worried about bugs?" Roxas asked from the side, flanked by Axel, who was carrying most of their gear. The blonde vampire huffed and broke into a smile- the sort derived from stress and exasperation.

"You try being seven and waking up in the middle of the night with a roach on your face and not being paranoid for life," the Slayer murmured. Roxas' slightly unhinged grin was contagious, though, and the teen found himself smiling and giggling uncontrollably. He blamed his nerves.

"Alright, it's probably time we get moving so you two can get to bed," Axel said slowly, his emerald eyes flitting back and forth between Sora and Roxas.

"We should all try to be well rested," Riku agreed.

After a brief tour of the structure- in which the two couples searched high and low, spotting weak points and hiding places and noting all of the barriers and charms that had been placed over the walls and ceilings- they split up to head to their rooms to rest and prepare before nightfall.

Sora poured a trickle of bottled water onto his toothbrush before digging through their bags for the toothpaste. "I'm glad Zexion and Demyx thought to do these little floating light things," he said quietly, his glance flying up to the soft, glowing orbs that hung in the air just below the ceiling.

"It is far better than candlelight would be," the vampire agreed as he peeled off his shirt and slipped on a pair of pajama bottoms. "You always appreciate magic more when you don't have modern conveniences."

The teen nodded as he spit into a bucket left on the nearby desk and then slipped into the bed next to his boyfriend. "One less thing I have to concern myself with before tonight. Ah. Y'know, it's beyond wonderful to have support, as a Slayer. I can worry about so much less. Oh, like you handling the naga for me- thanks."

"Not a problem," Riku assured him. "But, you know, when I was up there… they were all singing your praises- you have a fan club, for sure- but there was one that was, er, _quite_ interested in you. The one with the long hair and that ugly goatee thing," he said nonchalantly.

"Anik," Sora supplied helpfully, though he took a mental step back when he saw the vampire's glinting eyes narrow at his mentioning the naga's name.

"Yes. _Him_. He certainly makes no effort to hide how highly he thinks of you-"

"Well, yeah. _All_ of them liked me after I killed the thing that was _eating_ them."

"Oh, I think it's more than that. He asked me to pass along a _very_ special spear."

"It's mostly a warrior thing," Sora said with sagging shoulders. "He couldn't have despised me more until I showed that I was capable of fighting and _jumping_, which they were all very impressed with-"

"Before we were a 'we'," he said slowly, "were you two-"

"What? No! Why would you even think- no. No." Sora couldn't keep the look of incredulity and minor disgust off of his face. "What makes you think- ugh, God, we've barely even interacted! I don't know him! He doesn't know me! And I mean, he's cool and all, and has the capacity to be very nice, but he's _not_ my type. Riku, there's just so much wrong with that whole assumption, I can't even..." He groaned and covered his face with his hands, unsure of how the vampire could have imagined anything resembling a relationship with Anik occurring in the timeline of that night.

"Not your type, huh?" He looked relieved, and Sora immediately felt the mood lighten. "Well," he drawled, turning on his side to face the brunet and propping his head up on a bent arm, "what is?"

"Dead men that are my senior many times over who would like to eat me, apparently," he laughed. "But other than that, I have fairly nondescript, unassuming tastes. The basics, you know. He must be funny, trustworthy, well-mannered, kind, able to hold his own in battle with demonic forces bent on chaos, appreciative of family, confident, accepting of dogs, tolerant of werewolves that happen to be best friends, forgiving of my fondness for pop culture, prepared to face down the apocalypse with me, willing to endure all of the annoyances that come with dating a Slayer, and… mmm, I'm forgetting some things."

"No, you can stop," Riku chuckled. "My insecurity has been entirely cured."

"It had better be," the teen growled as he reached over to punch the vampire in the shoulder. "And I'd better not hear you suspecting anything else like that. I don't know about you, but there's only one mythical being for me," he added softly.

"Come Hell or high water," Riku agreed solemnly, bringing himself closer to the brunet.

As he clung fiercely to the larger, chilling body of his boyfriend and felt himself held tightly in return, Sora felt more safe and secure in that moment than he had even once in the last few weeks. It was as though the sky could fall down and the mountains around them could crumble and everything would be fine.

"I feel bad that Leon has to be alone tonight. Today," he corrected himself, voice soft as he played with ends of silvery white hair that were within reach of his fingers.

Riku squeezed him even harder, but the crushing was comforting because it brought them closer until it felt like they couldn't be taken apart. "Me, too."

Thinking of the surely heart-wrenching separation of Leon and Cloud (who was hopefully safe in another time zone), the presence of Demyx's well-loved Zexion (who was the only other human involved in this fight taking place on an inhuman scale), and the rest of the group making a stand with him filled Sora's mind with fresh worry.

Imagining what the loss of any one of his comrades would do to all the rest, spreading through their closest loved one and onto everyone else, was enough to send a sharp ache from the pit of his stomach to his chest. The lives of the naga, who trusted and respected him immensely now, and the werewolves that had stuck their necks out for him without any obligation to do so were also weighing heavily on him. The more Sora thought about it, the less he could deny that there was simply no way that they could all make it out alive. There would inevitably be casualties, and they could range from the bare minimum to utter decimation for all he knew.

An entire population of good-intentioned beings could soon be gone, thanks to him. Loved ones torn away from loved ones, families halved, lives ruined. Suddenly, Riku's grip felt very fragile, and the possibility that they could be separated in the most permanent of ways was painfully real.

Sora buried his face against cold skin, not wanting to contemplate the loss of Riku or any of the others any further. He breathed deeply, hoping the familiar smell and sensation would be enough to lose himself in for the time being.

"Are you alright?"

Sora stilled. "Just… at that stage where I'm not sure if I'm confident or terrified. I wish we could fast forward to the fight already," he said miserably. "All of this sitting around and thinking is worse than the event itself could ever be."

"So don't think," was Riku's solution.

The Slayer was ready to make a halfhearted attempt at a joke at the vampire's expense when he felt a hand slide up his side, slow and deliberate. The two shared a brief glance, and Sora could tell that he wasn't alone in having doubtful, worrisome thoughts about their future after sundown.

He took Riku's face in his hands and drew close, careful to study the vampire's face by the dimming magic light in between every kiss. He noticed Riku doing the same, light cerulean eyes darting back and forth constantly, nearly unblinking as he seemed to work at memorizing every detail of Sora's face at each passing moment.

"What are you doing?" the teen asked hazily, feeling a tad dazed from their sheer proximity and the weight of all of his current thoughts.

"Nothing. Making sure," he admitted a second later. "I don't want to end up regretting missing one second of being with you… and seeing you, and smelling you, and hearing you."

"Me neither," Sora agreed, gently rolling back and pulling Riku along with him, needing to feel his familiar weight and solidity.

They kept their faces close, always within inches of each other; when one pulled away from a kiss, the other sought to draw him back in. Their constant clinging made it impossible to strip down all the way, and movement was restricted and uncomfortable at times, but any parting felt like too much.

They fell asleep as entangled as ever, neither finding much to complain about in their awkward positioning. The dull ache of elbows and knees and hips pressed against soft flesh was a welcome and constant reminder that neither was alone tonight.

Sora, for his part, had never felt so warm while cradled against the vampire, and the comfortable temperature paired with pleasant exhaustion had let him drift into slumber more quickly than he ever could have hoped for with such a struggle on the horizon.

An indeterminable number of hours later, the brunet was jolted awake by a hand at his throat. It lacked the pressure of an attempt at choking or strangling, but was heavy enough to instantly rouse him from sleep. Just as panic fully set in, the feeling was gone. He sat up, a shaking hand over his neck as he recalled the attack from the turok-han, fearing that they had somehow caught them unawares.

The faint glow around the edges of the window coverings assured him that it was still day, and a glance at his watch let him know that sunset was still a couple of hours away. As his immediate alarm subsided, the Slayer noticed the likeliest culprit- a writhing Riku beside him.

Clearly in the throes of a nightmare, he tossed and turned and snarled weakly, occasionally crying out and making blind reaches and swings at some invisible entity as he heaved for periodic breaths.

Sora watched concernedly, fretting over whether or not to wake the vampire. Riku seemed incredibly immersed in the dream, and the fight for his life in the dream world was influencing his actions more strongly than Sora had ever seen from the vampire before. With this level of intensity, he might not recognize that it was Sora trying to wake him rather than a menace trying to kill him.

Several minutes passed, with the Slayer sitting up and wrapping his hands around his legs before setting his chin on his knees as he observed his boyfriend with a mix of anxiety and dark curiosity. The disturbingly quick movements of his eyes underneath his eyelids coupled with repeated expressions of anguish and anger, though slightly muted by the effects of sleep, were enough to keep Sora from looking on anything else. Every agitated shift of his body and twitch of his face lead to a new wonder at what the imaginary cause could be.

Sora was at last able to let out a sigh of relief when the vampire's body finally, slowly began to grow more relaxed and unmoving. He was still surprised at how little the deadly still form of his boyfriend at rest bothered him now. The absence of that gentle rise and fall of his chest- something Riku was adept at maintaining while awake and that occurred violently when he was worked up in a nightmare- was reassuring now, especially in the wake of the earlier incident.

The teen no longer felt like sleeping, having been too startled out of it and now too full of thoughts about his other half. He felt remorseful, attributing Riku's particularly fitful nightmare to his own disheartened attitude that was brought on by his inner reservations and fears- the vampire was perceptive, and his negative aura had probably been palpable. Sora reproached himself for not being stronger when it was most needed of him, when Riku was relying on him for it.

After stewing for a while, the brunet was grateful to see his vampire stir. Within seconds Riku was awake, and after a few seconds of wide-eyed awareness, the first thing he did was locate Sora and take a deep breath as he seized him and shook him fiercely.

The vampire was trembling as he addressed the teenager, his fingers digging into Sora's shoulders and his eyes, half-hidden under disheveled hair, staring almost maniacally. "Sora! You're still- you need to _go_, Sora. You need to go now, while there's time," he said in a rush.

"Riku!" the Slayer hissed, not wanting their voices to alarm the others. "Calm down- I'm not going anywhere," he said sharply, forcing the vampire's hands off of him.

"There's no other option anymore-"

"What are you talking about? This is _my_ fight," the brunet ground out. "Did you suddenly forget that? Are you okay?" he added, his concern for the person closest to him growing the longer his uncharacteristic outburst continued.

"There's no point in a battle for you if _you_ don't live to see the end of it!" Riku howled, becoming more upset by the second.

Sora was upset as well, his resolute mind unsure of how to interpret or handle his partner's sudden reaction. "I can't just leave and let everyone I care about risk their lives for me. I can't ask others to support me and then ditch them, Riku. They're all at risk, why shouldn't I be, too?"

"It's not a risk anymore, Sora," the vampire said with a shaky voice that indicated tears were likely not far behind. He quieted, settling down on bent legs, his whole body- for a moment- seeming to crumple down and inward. "It's a given."

"No, I-"

"No, it _is_," Riku insisted again. "I saw it. I saw you dying. Xemnas stabbing you and you bleeding out right in front of me. He smiled, so… so… fuck," he added bitterly, his words becoming less coherent as he was overwhelmed by remembering it. "Please, don't go. Please. For me."

Sora was flabbergasted and let it show; it wasn't like Riku to act this way, and more than anything he actually said, it was his panicked, crushed manner that frightened the brunet. There was a terrible feeling of lifting and sinking that was moving within his chest at the moment- but he supposed it was likely a normal sensation after hearing one's own death announced. But faced with his normally composed boyfriend's current condition, the teen was resolved to remain positive, calm and as level-headed as possible.

"Riku," the young Slayer said softly, moving closer to try to soothe the terror-ridden vampire. "You only see possibilities, things that could happen if-"

"Yes, which is why we need to keep the circumstances that would allow for it from happening! Namely, you not being on the battlefield."

"But you never saw what might happen if I did leave," the Slayer protested. "What if the outcome is a hundred times worse? What if I'm safe but half of you ended up dead because I gave up and ran away? Xemnas could just as well beat you and then hunt me down afterward," Sora said weakly, not wanting to push his distraught boyfriend any further but also wanting him to see the shortsightedness of his concern.

"It could go the other way just as easily. Without you we could still have an advantage. They might be so distracted looking for you that they are inattentive during the fighting." He argued with fire, with passion induced by the very real fear of losing the human he had grown unimaginably close to in such a short period of time.

"That's incredibly unlikely," Sora murmured, knowing that Riku was also acutely aware of how unfairly the odds were already going to be tipped in the Palliata's favor, both in terms of numbers and power. Removing one of their sides strongest combatants would only be a nail in the coffin at this point.

"So… that's it?" Rika asked bitterly. "You're resigned to this, in spite of everything I've said? I'm telling you," he said in a slow, measured tone, "that if we go on as planned, you are going to be killed. And the rest of us just may end up following, and in that case it would have been better for you to leave and live, at least."

"Nothing's set in stone," Sora reminded him, but the optimistic words only seemed to distress the vampire more. "Anyway, if anyone should be fleeing to live another day, it should be Zexion and Demyx, or Axel and the werewolves. They don't _have_ to be here. This is what being a Slayer is about," the brunet said quietly. "I can't just give up. I can't run away from what I was destined to do- and that's fighting. There is no opting out for a Slayer, even if it means dying."

Silvery-white locks swished as the vampire shook his head sadly. "You don't think that _that_ is giving up? Throwing away any chance you have for the sake of destiny? Letting some notion of being fated to wage this battle tell you to jump into the fire?"

"Riku, I'm seventeen. Do you really think I want to die?" he asked incredulously. "I haven't graduated, I haven't gotten my driver's license yet, and I'm not even an adult. And I'm in love. I have a family for the first time since my parents… The second to last thing I want to do is miss all of that."

"Second to last?" Riku inquired hesitantly.

"The _last_ thing I want to do," Sora as he straightened up, willing himself to appear stronger on the outside than he felt on the inside, "is to not be with you up until the very end, whatever that end may be. Or be remembered as the Slayer that incited a war and then skipped out," he added with a teary chuckle. "Or let everyone down. Let _you_ down. Watch while people I love struggle. Know I didn't try my hardest to do the right thing. I guess there are a lot of things I don't want to do, actually."

Riku soon found himself in the role that Sora had just occupied, dealing with a trembling Slayer that kept wiping his cheeks free of tears only to find them streaked with wet the next moment. He maneuvered Sora closer, then wrapped the sheets and blankets around them like a cocoon, wanting his vampire Slayer to feel as warm and secure as the situation would allow.

"But if anything is going to happen to me- and we're not sure it will, not one-hundred-percent," he reminded the vampire, "I'm going to make sure that I stake that Xemnas straight through first. They're not going to bother us anymore, or anyone else," the brunet said with a sharp determination. "By the end of tonight, the Palliata- or whatever's left of it- is going to have a brand-spanking-new policy when it comes to interfering in Slayers' personal lives, because it's one thing we damn well should get to enjoy."

The vampire sighed and let his head rest against Sora's, not breathing a word in response to the Slayer's vow.

"Did you happen to see about anyone else?" the teen chanced to ask, his fierce resolve quickly turning into tender worry for the silent vampire. He had intended to move to a different subject entirely, not wanting to dredge up every painful thing that Riku had witnessed in his dreams, but the first question that slipped out was what had been on his mind.

"Nothing as decisive or meaningful as what I saw with you. Just… snippets of who is fighting who. All in regular speed, blurs from the middle of battle. Nothing informative about any of it."

"Is that how it always is?"

"N-no, not exactly," he said with a touch of embarrassment. "I'm not sure why it focused so much more on you. Well, I _know_," he corrected. "You're on my mind all the time when I'm awake, so it follows that you would monopolize it when I'm asleep, too."

"Sorry."

"It's my fault, not yours," Riku chided. "This has never happened to me before. I should have been more diligent-"

"Oh, shut up. Don't even start blaming yourself for not being able to direct your dreaming," he said, mildly annoyed. The brunet took to rubbing the vampire's upper arms soothingly and continued, more gently this time. "You don't even remember- I mean, you don't know about yourself?"

Riku shook his head slowly. "No. I…" he trailed off, shaking his head again.

At his dejected silence, Sora bit his lip. "You know, I had thought you were having nightmares about something bad happening to _you_."

"What?" the vampire asked suddenly. His forehead creased as he considered that. "Why?"

"Because you weren't telling me anything."

"Oh. I didn't want to alarm you before I knew what was happening. There have been too many instances in history where someone with clairvoyant tendencies royally fucks up a battle by misinterpreting what they've seen," he told the brunet. "I may not know a whole lot, and it may be terrible, but at least I can be certain of it." His lips were pressed into a tight, firm line. "_Unfortunately_."

"Can you describe it?" Sora asked tentatively, morbid curiosity getting the better of him. He was still shocked about Riku's proclamation of his death and had trouble fully believing it. It was hard- nearly impossible, actually- to feel his heart beating and the air around him and the sorrowful ache deep inside and think that it could all be stopped by sunrise. He felt too present, too tied up in this life and the fate of the world to think that it could continue without him. Still, curiosity aside, he knew it would be wisest to be prepared in every way possible.

"I don't want to talk about it," Riku immediately replied, his voice sharp and angry. After a few moments of reflection, he sighed and met the Slayer's cobalt eyes with his own. "Well, I can't see straight, for one thing. I can't move, either. Someone blew up the well, and the edges are collapsing. You're headed to Xemnas, and he's just standing there, waiting for you. Your back is facing me, so I don't know what you're saying, but he's smirking. One of them shot you with one of those stupid things that Axel made," he said bitterly, "and while you were surprised, he grabbed you and took your stake and stabbed you and you fell over, all curled up, holding your chest, and I could smell your blood. Then he started his victory speech," he said dully. "The last things I can recall are seeing you still on the floor, and Xemnas walking toward me."

"He goes to you after me?" Sora questioned, more disturbed at the thought of what might happen to an incapacitated Riku than his own staking.

"I guess," the vampire replied blandly, clearly on the same page as the Slayer in putting the importance of his lover's fate above his own.

The brunet's expression was more troubled than ever. If it was true that his own death was unpreventable, short of fleeing the time zone and running for the rest of his short life, he knew he had to ensure that his friends and new family were not so unfortunate. The thought of his boyfriend, helplessly immobile, forced to watch him die and then be struck down himself was too cruel.

"So who shot me?"

"I couldn't see," Riku murmured. "I'd assume that one of their lackeys got it. I doubt any of the Palliata but Larxene would be much interested in them."

"Well, if we can change that, can't we change what happens next?" the teen asked with hopeful optimism.

Riku was less quick to assume it to be a fix, although he wanted to. "It could, but-"

"It's _something_, Riku," the teen was quick to say. "Nothing's assured, but I could at least go up there facing him with the confidence that I wouldn't be stabbed in the back- literally- by someone I'm not even expecting."

"It was in your thigh," Riku corrected with a frown. "Not your back."

"Whatever," Sora sighed exhaustedly as he rubbed harshly at his temples with both palms; the action didn't scour away his heavy thoughts like he wanted it to. "I'm already out of energy and we haven't even raised a finger yet. Did you bring any coffee or anything?" he asked hopefully.

Riku stared at him. "No. Why would I be the one bringing coffee?" he asked in an unusually high-pitched voice. "You know I'm not going to think about that stuff in the flurry of an escape."

Sora gave a long, drawn out sigh, and the two sat in thick silence as they stewed and absorbed everything that was still hanging in the air. Soon enough, though, it was apparent to both that all that was weighing on them had to be tucked away, buried in their minds where it could not bother them so long as pressing needs were upon them.

"I'll just have to ask Axel," the Slayer said simply. "Do you need to eat something?"

"Leon has a cooler of blood somewhere," Riku said with a shrug. "I suppose it's close enough now. Might as well start getting ready," he muttered, glancing toward the clock by the bed.

"Things'll… work out," Sora told him in a whisper. "It'll be okay." He laid his hand over Riku's larger, starkly pale one, his thumb brushing the large ring on the vampire's middle finger, silently willing that everything _would_ somehow be alright after this.

"Don't worry about comforting me," the vampire said with a soft, lingering smile. He took the brunet's hand in his own and used the other to cup Sora's cheek. "Just focus on you."

He had to bite back another teary-eyed speech at that point, knowing that the Slayer's mind was set on its course, immovable. Sora was the sort of person that would travel to the ends of one world and into the next for people he loved and causes he cared about. More emotional struggles and worrisome premonitions on his part would do no good to the boy he cared about.

Sora had resolved to fight tonight as though it would be his last. Riku was likewise determined to keep it from being so, despite the Slayer's insistence on fighting. If there was a way to stop that killing blow from landing, or a way to receive it in Sora's place, he would find it.

* * *

**Adding Kairi makes me happy. Still doesn't help much with the sex ratio going on, but eh.**

**Next chapter- action packed. **


	16. Revolution

**Okay! First update on this account in a long time… I mentioned that I was on the fence about actually finishing this, and some concerned people took the time to message me about it, so I pulled up all my old files and got to work. I hope this at least provides some closure. :)**

**I apologize for leaving it so long, and I'm sorry for any excessive typos- it's been a long time since I've had anything to send to my old beta, and I'm too ashamed to bother her with anything at this point! **

**Should I warn about character death? Half the cast is already dead anyway, haha. (Had to go back and find a poem I like to keep it consistent :) )**

* * *

_"The Grave said to the Rose, _  
_ "What of the dews of dawn, _  
_ Love's flower, what end is theirs?""_

_- The Grave and The Rose, Victor Hugo_

* * *

"Looks like they vacated," Larxene said sourly as she pulled the door off of the refrigerator, pointedly ignoring the turok-han that snarled and leapt aside as she nearly hit him with it.

"Which isn't surprising," Xigbar reminded her from across the room where he had been examining books and magazines left on the table. "These aren't a bunch of fledglings. They know what to expect-"

"And I wonder why _that_ is," Marluxia said sarcastically, shooting the eye-patched vampire a haughty look.

"It's because they're not morons. Every demon in the city is gone or underground- even _you_ could have comprehended the signs, Marluxia, and that's saying something," Xigbar said with a disdainful sneer. He turned to the rest of the group, more composed and respectful as he added, "I'm just saying… maybe we should hold off if they're already expecting us."

"You're only saying that because you want to help out your little boy toy," Larxene said sharply. "Like he'll return your misguided feelings you if you pull strings for him." She giggled behind her hand as the other vampire's face tightened.

"Silence," Saix ordered from the entryway. He glanced to their superior, who hadn't deigned to cross the threshold, before returning his attention to the rest of the Palliata and the small army of turok-han that were accompanying them. "Search everywhere. Do not destroy a thing until you are certain it holds no value to us."

"Oopsie!" The blonde vampire covered her mouth and popped up one of her legs in a mockery of childish innocence before proceeding to tear through the rest of the rooms- presumably causing just as much destruction as she had in the kitchen- with Vexen, Marluxia, and Xigbar each following in tow.

"You had better not let Xigbar into the runt's room. We will never get him back out," Vexen commented snidely to the others, earning mirthless chuckles from the other two and a dark glare from the scarred, eyepatched old vampire in question.

"Xigbar," Saix called, summoning the vampire back into the living room and kitchen area while the rest combed through the bedrooms and bathrooms.

"Yes?" he asked as properly as he could muster, still seething on the inside.

"I am extending a warning to you. Should your faith to the Palliata become questionable, we will not hesitate to execute you with the rest of the heretics and traitors to our kind."

"You don't have to worry about that," Xigbar assured him, his lip curling slightly. "Whatever personal feelings I might have had, they don't mean anything in the face of a betrayal like this. I've only ever been loyal," he reminded Saix, willing him to remember the countless times prior that he had served the organization in assassinating threats and rivals, how many times he had turned in lower ranked members for conspiracies or insidious activity.

"I recall as much," the blue haired vampire said with a short nod. "I have confidence that when the moment comes, you will act in the correct manner," he added with a piercing glare. "All the same, your target is not to be the youngest of Leon's flock. You are not to make contact with him at all during the course of our meeting. He _will_ be Larxene's charge."

The vampire licked his pale, dry lips. "Saix, I'd like to prove my loyalty. What better way than exterminating the cause of your suspicion of me with my own two hands? Right?"

"An admirable desire, certainly," Saix said emotionlessly. "But it is not to be left to chance, and we have _no_ concerns of Larxene hesitating at the killing blow. The sooner we can destroy their magic-wielder, the sooner the entire uprising is crushed."

"Who will I be targeting, then?"

"You and Marluxia will be tasked with Riku and the werewolf aligned with them. You may decide how to divide the work as you wish."

Xigbar's face remained impassive as he gave Saix a sharp nod, his gloved hands flexing in agitation.

"Are you bothered by these orders?" the blue-haired vampire asked with narrowed eyes, his tone testing.

A smirk pulled at his scared lips. "You know how fond I am of working with Marluxia," he said with a hint of humor.

Saix didn't smile- he _never_ smiled, not to Xigbar's knowledge, at least- but his mouth grew slightly less tight and he seemed prepared to accept the other vampire's displeasure as stemming from his comrades. "He is… a devious one," he agreed softly, his eyes burning in the direction of the pink-haired vampire, as if his gaze could pierce the walls that separated them.

Xigbar nodded, thankful for the spotlight being shifted from him. For a moment, he found himself grateful for the pink-haired vampire's conniving ways; clever though he could be, Marluxia couldn't keep suspicion from arising as he repeatedly sought to manipulate those around him and advance his position within the organization. It was more than a little satisfying to note that the higher ups had their eyes on the vampire and his scheming.

Within moments the rest of the Palliata began filtering back in, none having any luck with their searches.

"Clearly, they've hidden everything of consequence," Marluxia complained. "It could not be far-"

"We haven't the time to search for some hiding place," Saix disagreed quickly, his displeasure at the suggestion apparent in his tone. "It would likely be enchanted for protection as well."

"Then we have no surprises for them at all?" Larxene whined.

"I wouldn't say that," Xemnas said from the hallway, his lips curving up slightly.

"Oh, but it's so much more fun if it's _personal_," the impish blonde said pleasantly.

"I imagine this might be of some importance," Vexen announced to the rest of the vampires, sauntering slowly down the hallway. He held up a slip of paper between two fingers, retrieved from a bedroom. "It contains an address and a name."

"So?" Larxene bit out, her tone mocking and scathing. She had always liked Vexen the least, had tormented him off and on for the last few centuries, and was always displeased to see him actually making himself useful. Her eyes narrowed at the tiny scrap of paper, sincerely hoping that the other blond had once again leapt to some useless conclusion and would wind up berated by the superior as a result.

"It belonged to the Slayer," he added with a self-satisfied grin. A not-so-subtle glance at Larxene let him know that she was as aware of his success as he was, which only served to boost his mood further. He handed the address to Xemnas with a slight flourish, already knowing that his standing with the powerful vampire had just increased.

* * *

The room was uncomfortably silent. Zexion was mouthing words as he thumbed through pages of a monstrously thick book, his eyes darting so quickly that Sora doubted he was actually reading anything at all; Axel was checking blades and weapons for perhaps the hundredth time, periodically shaking his head as if to stir himself from his thoughts and put his mind on the tedious task at hand.

Sora wasn't sure if he was expected to make some fierce speech to rouse everyone and ready them for battle, or if it was his place to, or if he _could._ His own stomach twisted and turned with apprehension, as if his body itself was aware that the end could be approaching.

"Are you going to tell them?" Sora asked tentatively, his voice the barest of whispers by Riku's ear. He worried about being overheard in the silence, but after a moment's glance at the others he concluded that they were probably too caught up in their own thoughts to hear him at all.

"I would feel terrible to go into this with such a secret," the vampire admitted. "But I don't see any point in going into great detail." He spared a glance at the brunet, his confliction evident in his expression. "It would only press on Demyx's mind, and Axel's, perhaps to the point of distraction."

The brunet swallowed thickly. "Good point." He did not want to think of Axel and the other vampires having to worry for him in the midst of fighting; he could picture, all too easily, one of them taken down in a moment of distracted concern for him.

"I had a dream earlier," Riku said with a sigh, turning toward the rest of the group and waiting until each person's attention was on him.

Leon was the first to speak; he had known Riku for all of his life as a vampire, had seen him dreaming and knew very well what they could mean. "What happened? You saw the outcome?"

Riku could see them waiting, breathless. "No… I did not," he told them apologetically, receiving soft sighs and stiff smiles in response. "I don't remember much, to be honest," he continued, "but I happened to see one of our own weapons being turned against us. Those shooting stake-knives," he clarified, his gaze shifting to Axel.

"Th-the knives? They take them?" He was staring at the duffel back that held a couple dozen of the devices. "Like, during the fight? From us? Should we hide them? Not use them?"

"I don't think so," Sora interjected, shaking his head. "Any weapon of ours, any tool, could be used against us. That doesn't make it not worth using… it just means that we'll have to be a little more careful with them."

"I agree," Roxas said simply, his arms crossed as he swung gently from side to side. "I doubt most of the bullheaded turok-han they bring will even think to pick up something as small as one of those knives," he said lowly. "They lack finesse. Our axes, spears, swords- these are things they could find and use to great effect," he warned, "but that possibility does not render them unusable for us. We _need_ such things."

"The variety in our arsenal is one of our few advantages," Leon added, his chin resting on steepled fingers. "For a brief time, each new and unexpected weapon will afford us a bit of surprise. I don't think we can dismiss the shock benefits of a handful of flame-throwers, chakrams, and flying stakes."

"Your dream brought this up," Axel said with a nod, "but it's something we should have considered from the start. A sword doesn't care who's wielding it," he sighed. "And it's not like we can carry everything on us at once anyway," he added a bit more brightly.

"We'll hide everything?" Demyx suggested softly, tucking a piece of hair behind his ear.

"Yes," Leon said with a nod.

"Hidden but easily accessible, if you know where to look," Roxas stated, directing his comments to Leon and Axel, who had already begun looking for places to discretely hold weaponry.

"We must remember what is where," Riku said softly, slipping the thin, disc blade of a chakram into a crack in the wall. Axel grunted in response, and each person made sure to note aloud where they tucked stakes, axes, spears, daggers, tiny bottles of holy water, and everything else possible for use. Weapons were hidden under loose stones in the floor, behind sconces, in the crevices between bricks, and even behind the creeping ivy that blanketed areas of wall.

"We can't keep them from picking up something if we drop it," Zexion said when they had finished. "Or stumbling onto on their own. But hopefully things will not go as you saw," he said with a soft smile.

"Yeah, I'd hate to get stabbed with one of those things," Demyx agreed, suppressing a shudder at the thought. "Who was it that got knifed?" he asked suddenly, staring at Riku and clearly hoping that it wasn't himself.

"Sora," the vampire confessed, his shoulders slumping as expressions went from mild concern to outright alarm. "But non-lethally," he added quickly, trying to calm a ranting Axel and a strangely upset Roxas. "In the leg," he explained, gesturing to a spot on his own thigh for emphasis.

"Leg wounds can be very lethal," Axel protested, glaring at Sora like he _intended_ to be wounded there. "One nick to a major artery-"

"If I come out of this with a stab to my leg, I'll be happy," the Slayer said flatly. "We've got more important things to worry about. Like everyone staying safe, and being careful, and kicking the Palliata's collective ass so hard that they go six feet under for good."

Sora was pleased to note that he had gotten a few chuckles and appreciative noises. As he watched Demyx fidget nervously, the haze of magic already dancing around his fingertips, and Axel shakily light two cigarettes at once, the teen decided that it would be best for them to go into this on as high of a note as possible.

Granted, he wasn't expecting cheers and giant grins, but a positive outlook would certainly be better than approaching it all grim-faced.

"As much as I hate that I've brought all of this onto you guys," he began, slowly coming to stand in the middle of a loosely formed circle, "there's no one in the world I'd rather be with right now. You're my family," he added softly, smiling fondly as he looked at each of them.

"Don't feel bad," Demyx said quickly, his bright eyes wide and worried. He was wrapped around Sora in a heartbeat, embracing him in a fierce hug that threatened to bruise his ribs; the slayer could feel the vampire's trembling. "You didn't drag us into anything! Family is supposed to look out for each other. And I'm glad we're that kind of family."

Sora and Roxas shuffled a bit and agreed, unsure of how to follow that up, and Leon nodded.

Axel, long-limbed as he was, took it upon himself to wrap his arms around everyone and force them all closer. It wasn't much of a group hug- Zexion was tugged closer by Demyx, but he just stood there and let himself be tenderly squeezed by the vampire, and Leon, Riku, and Roxas were stiff and awkward as they wound their arms around each other- but it felt right to Sora. They were a strange collection of individuals, unrelated by age and species and blood, but they had created something strong and worthwhile nonetheless.

And he would be damned to let it be ruined by the likes of the Palliata.

There was suddenly a sound, similar to the noise of small wind chimes, but with a decidedly worrisome note. He couldn't place his finger on it, but something in the way it echoed that made the hairs on the back of his neck raise.

He turned just enough to see Zexion's mouth moving, and though he couldn't make out the words, he realized what the noise signified. One of the human's magical barriers had been broken, triggering the alarm; Sora inhaled sharply, finding himself panicked at how quickly everything was happening.

There was a palpable malevolence in the air, flooding in from every direction. Sora could feel, from every corner, the oppressive air of murderous intent. It triggered in him a primal feeling that was accompanied by his hair raising and his skin prickling, a sense of being hunted and cornered, a fight for life about to begin.

There was no preamble. No orchestrated entrance or theatrical affair, which Sora had been expecting to some extent. Just the sudden presence of figures- too many figures, all cloaked in black- pouring in through the doorways and some even crawling down the walls.

At first, Sora could not even discern which of them were Palliata and which were simply turok-han.

Sora found himself swarmed within seconds, a dozen turok-han reaching out with their cold, burning hands, ready to snap and crush any limbs they happened to grab.

He barely saw Leon as he shot after one of the figures with single-minded focus, landing a swift punch to the jaw that knocked the hood of its black cloak off; it revealed a snarling vampire with a mess of bright blue hair and sharp, golden eyes. The scar across his face was twisted as the vampire snarled and lunged for Leon. The two tore into each other with a brutality that was stunning, acting as though they had been embroiled in vicious combat for ages rather than having just begun.

Sora slammed a stake into one of the turok-han and ducked through the empty space left by its dissolving corpse, escaping the press of enemies. He scrabbled at the wall, pulling out two bottles of holy water and one of the projectile, stake-tipped knives.

He hurled one bottle into the face of a particularly ferocious turok-han, pleased when he crumbled to the floor, howling and scratching at his eyes. He launched the knife into the chest of another that was not three feet away- it stabbed straight through, flying into the neck of the one standing behind it and sending a spray of dark blood high into the air.

Another shattered bottle of holy water gave Sora the chance to slip away again, and without the urgent matter of dealing with turok-han encircling him, he was able to get his bearings.

"Sora!"

The Slayer found himself toe-to-toe with Demyx, who was sporting a gash across his left eye and a splatter of blood across his chest- thankfully, it did not seem to be his own.

"Demyx! What's-"

"Oh, no, no, no," a high, tinkling voice rang from above. "This is going to be _our_ dance, runt," she hissed, venom in her eyes and voice alike. "No cutting in!"

A barrage of thin, needle-like daggers whizzed in Sora's direction, deflected at the last second by a shadowy barrier that vanished in a billowy plume of smoke as quickly as it had appeared. Demyx grinned smugly at the blond girl's perplexed anger.

Larxene snarled as she noticed Zexion tucked in a corner some way behind the rest of the vampires. "Two magic wielders? No matter," she said with forced coolness, smirking and darting toward Zexion, four knives appearing in each of her hands.

Demyx leapt after her without a second thought, leaving Sora to his search for Xemnas.

The teen could already feel his blood boiling; his anger was stoked by the sights surrounding him- Axel, snarling and yelping as he faced the pink-haired vampire; Riku, deflecting shots from a convincingly fierce Xigbar; Roxas deftly dodging ice and inventive tactics from a gaunt blonde vampire, even with one of his legs coated in red from the jagged bite of a demonic minion.

Leon and the scarred, blue-headed vampire tumbled and chased around the room with reckless speed, clearly in their own world, doing battle on an entirely different plane from the rest of them. And above all of the noise, Sora could hear the cackling of the sadistic blonde vampire as she flung knives at Demyx and Zexion, the overburdened human doing the best he could to fight her off while stymieing the surge of turok-han that pressed at magically sealed doorways.

But still… Xemnas was nowhere to be found. Sora scanned every area of conflict, never once finding the menacing leader of the Palliata.

"Sora," Riku panted, suddenly at his side. "Xigbar said something… about a summoning. Xemnas is preparing to summon a demon."

At once Sora felt a pointed tip pressing against his back. "The north wall," the one-eyed vampire whispered gruffly, emphasizing his words with a light shove of the crossbow. And then he whirled on Riku, haphazardly taking aim and letting the bolt fly.

Riku ducked the shot easily and glanced and the northern entrance, beyond which half a dozen turok-han milled frustratedly, barred from entering by a thin, faintly shimmering barrier. And beyond them, Sora now knew, was Xemnas.

He grabbed an axe from its hiding place, grateful for its heft and size. While he normally prized accuracy and ease of concealment for his weapons, he desired something a bit more… destructive.

He stepped through the barrier, feeling a gentle tingle run down his back, and swung into the thick crowd of turok-han. He didn't count how many he sliced into, didn't care to wonder; he just hacked into as many as he could, only noting the resistance against his blade before the axe won out.

It wasn't long before a layer of ashen dust lay around him, accompanied by dismembered, writhing bodies that were slowly bleeding out. Sora sneered and wiped the sweat from his forehead before it could run into his eyes, already resuming his search for the Palliata's leader.

He combed the stretch of northern wall, never finding any sign of Xemnas or the demonic summoning he was apparently staging. For a brief moment, Sora was overcome by the worry that Xigbar had purposefully led them astray and was not as sympathetic to their cause as he had appeared.

Sora slipped back into the building and spotted Zexion weakly holding off a rabid turok-han while Demyx bore the brunt of Larxene's attacks. The slayer took careful aim and flung his axe at the creature, the spinning blade sinking deep into its back and stunning it, allowing the human to quickly sever its neck with a focused slice of shadowy magic.

The brunet was ready to find Xigbar again and hold him down while he forced more precise answers from him when he turned and caught sight of the exact person he was pursuing- a shock of white hair stood out against skin that managed to be pearly while retaining some of its original brown coloring.

"Now, perhaps it is time to put this charade to an end," a cold, condescending voice rang out above the din. Within moments each of the Palliata had disengaged from their opponents, retreating back in line with their leader.

Some were better off than others, the Slayer noted with a quick scan. While the ferocious, blue-haired vampire was heavily cut and bleeding, he still seemed ready for more; the sickly looking blond, however, was clearly on his last legs. Roxas had done a number on him, apparently managing to remove a finger or two as well as catch one of the vampire's arms on fire.

"It is time to unveil your true opponent for tonight, Slayer," Xemnas said with an elegant gesture to a gaggle of turok-han on his left.

There was a quiet gasp from those on Sora's side as one of them brought forth a young girl, bound at the ankles with her wrists tied behind her back. The dirty, soft pink tatters that she wore looked to have been a pair of pajamas not so long ago.

Everywhere that the cloth was missing, her skin was covered in red carvings. Up and down her arms and legs were interweaving lines and symbols, made with the long, fluid strokes of a knife. All lead to her torso, where elaborate shapes had been lightly carved into her neck, over her chest, and on her abdomen. Patterns made by her own blood decorated her entire body, leaving only her face, which was red from crying and smudged with dirt and blood, uncut.

It was only after moments of being dazed by her appearance that the Slayer saw the raspberry red hair and felt a shiver of unfortunate recognition run up his spine.

"Kairi!" he cried out in surprise, alarming all of his comrades. The high school girl's shaking stilled and she dared to open her eyes, which had been resolutely screwed shut for the last hour to block out as much of her abusers as possible. Her relief in simply seeing a familiar face was heartbreaking to the brunet.

"Sora! Oh my God, Sora, these people are insane," she sobbed, her face flushed red and streaked in tears, both dried and fresh. "Help me! Please! Sora, please!" She continued to cry, repeating the same pleas over and over, growing softer and more muddled by choked sobs as she went on.

"Why do you have her?" the Slayer questioned angrily, his jaw clenched and his hands curled into tight, shaking fists. "What use is she to you? Let her leave! She has no part in this!"

"It would appear that she does," the ashy blonde vampire said with a smirk. "I'm so glad that I stumbled across her address in your room. You seem to care a great deal for her."

"The rest of them also seem to quite concerned for her simply being one measly, unfamiliar woman," Marluxia noted.

Larxene let out a high, spiteful laugh. "The werewolf must be breaking out into a sweat just from seeing her like this, because I swear the stench has doubled. Maybe they're related? These garish red colors can't be too common," she hissed, grabbing a fistful of Kairi's hair and twisting it until she screamed.

"Stop it! I barely know her! She's not important," Sora argued quickly, hoping to get the sadistic blonde to cease her tortures. He glanced from the redheaded girl to the rest of the vampires and their army in waiting. "I just think it's _cowardly_ for you to bring some unrelated girl here to hide behind. You don't think you can beat me on your own? You have to come with a trick up your sleeve?"

The white-haired leader of the cohort smiled and tilted his head, the gesture empty of emotion. He gave the Slayer a measured stare before stating, "Every great summon requires a sacrifice."

With that he took Kairi from Larxene and before Sora could even take a full breath, the vampire had flung the girl to the side. She screamed as she arced through the air, falling almost in slow motion to all who were watching.

Demyx, who had been the closest to the massive well, took bounding leaps toward her falling body, only to arrive at the low stone wall seconds too late to catch her before she dropped out of sight and into the darkness.

He had barely time to turn back around before Larxene was on him, trying to wrestle him into the now rumbling well, too.

"She's always so impatient," Marluxia said in something of an apology as he flew toward Axel. He carried with him a short-handled sickle, its shimmering silver blade making the werewolf snarl uncontrollably. They made slow, sinuous movements as they circled each other, neither letting his gaze leave the other.

"Kairi! We have to get Kairi," Sora whispered to Riku, while Leon left his side to meet Saix.

"There's no time," Riku hissed, gripping the Slayer's arms and urging him to focus on the vampires that were assailing them and the impressive number of the turok-han, which were making each fight incredibly uneven.

Sora glanced up and saw Xigbar drawing near, clearly marking Riku, and Xemnas withdrawing to watch the battles, clearly feeling no need to lower himself to a hand-to-hand fight if his forces did not require it.

It made the brunet sneer- this was an insult and rage that was new to him. He gave his boyfriend's arm a brief squeeze, finding his worried, cerulean eyes with his own and giving him a clear indication of his intentions.

Before Xigbar could descend on them both, the Slayer took off, darting between the fighting pairs.

He reached the side of the well and leaned half way over it, cursing as he was unable to see to its depths. The deep rumble and sloshing of water was ominous, and with Kairi bound as she was, he knew there wasn't much time left for her, if she was still alive at all.

"Slayer!" was all the heads up he received before seeing two daggers whizzing toward him. He leaned back just in time, catching a glimpse of the cackling blonde vampire responsiblejust before finding himself in the cold, terrible, and familiar grip of a turok-han.

The Slayer struggled to keep the arms wrapped around his chest from crushing the air out of him or snapping his ribs. He let out a frustrated scream at being so close to saving her and so delayed. The teen was ready to heave himself over into the well with the demon attached until he saw a streak of tan jump cleanly into the opening first. He watched, shocked, before remembering the situation he was in and throwing his head back to crash into his captor's.

With a quick surge of strength he spun and loosened the demon's grip enough to tear him off. Sora shoved the turok-han forward onto its knees, and with it bracing the well wall and standing back up, he aimed a well-timed a kick at its head.

His steel-toed foot slammed into the demon's skull just as it rose above the wall's top, pushing its neck into the rough stone until it cracked and burst open. Another kick, placed right at the back of the neck itself, severed the turok-han's head nearly completely, the few remaining strands of flesh holding it on apparently not enough to keep the creature from dissolving.

Sora bent over to look inside the well and saw a half-transformed werewolf with Kairi clinging to his back slowly climbing up; he was using the blocks of stone that randomly jutted out from years of the earth shifting and holes where chunks had fallen out as footholds for his roughly padded, thick fingered hands and feet.

Assured that- for the moment at least- she was out of harm's way, Sora knew he had to return to the clash dominating the floor.

He heard Larxene's angry outburst and wicked laugh as she pursued Demyx throughout the room, swiping at him with lightning charged attacks and flinging knives at both him and Zexion, who was casting spells both in her direction and toward whatever turok-han or Palliata member seemed to be getting the better of one of their allies at that moment. Zexion, for his part, looked exhausted already, the numerous and powerful magics he was working draining him more than he was used to. Demyx, however, looked more fierce than Sora had ever seen or imagined him to be- where he had drawn watery figures to help do the fighting from, the brunet had no idea. Larxene was barely able to get within ten feet of him before being deflected away by a torrent or mobbed by a battalion of liquid beings.

After finding a way past them, Sora was nearly bowled over by Axel, who was so entangled with the pink-haired vampire that the two rolled across the floor like a single entity. There was an ear-paining yowl as Marluxia's blade sank deeply into one of the werewolf's shoulders, steaming and burning on contact; a second later the rust-colored lycanthrope had wheeled and bitten down hard enough on the vampire's leg to crunch through his knee, producing a scream just as pained as his own earlier one.

The Slayer dodged the writhing, snarling pair, now clear enough of the other dueling warriors to see Roxas, Leon, and Riku holding their own against other vampires. Roxas was managing to fend off the attacks of Vexen's turok-han as well as what appeared to be a demon under his vocal control. The grossly malformed, oversized, human-esque creature was spewing some dark grey liquid that appeared to whither anything it touched, leaving the blonde vampire to ferociously hack at it with a halberd that kept him at a safe distance. The other end of the handle had been sharpened, in Axel's preferred way of creating a multifunctional weapon, that he used to periodically stake the turok-han that circled and approached him from behind.

Riku was fighting hand-to-hand with Xigbar, each dealing blows that were almost unbelievable in their intensity. The older vampire quickly knocked any weapon that Riku withdrew from his hands, smartly keeping their fight on a playing field of sheer strength, endurance, and speed rather than advantageous tools.

Leon and Saix could scarcely be seen. Every so often Sora would see one slam into a wall, or the floor, or a column, but each would immediately rise and find his enemy again, both moving so fluidly and speedily that watching their fight was akin to finding where a darting wasp had flitted off to while you were blinking.

And Xemnas was still watching.

An unearthly howl filled the room as Sora began fighting his way through a mob of turok-han to reach Xemnas. A quick glance and he knew why.

Roxas stood battered but triumphant above the rapidly withering and disintegrating form of the blonde Palliata vampire. His skin had turned dark and brittle, breaking and falling off as the aged vampire fell to his knees, still grasping at the shaft of the broken spear that had been rammed through his chest.

With one last rattle his form began to fall apart, settling into a pile of fine, dark grey dust on the floor.

Sora felt his heart soar at Roxas' victory, and he managed to kill the next three turok-han with one blow apiece. But for each that he killed, two more arrived to push him back, forcing the Slayer further away from the Palliata's leader.

He growled in frustration as he hacked through what seemed to be an endless supply of vampires, never growing any closer to his target. Sparing a moment to glance up from his work, Sora found his eyes locked with the steely gold of Xemnas'; the vampire's stare was, above all, amused. But there was also disdain, and disgust, probably hate, and… something that reminded the teen of fear.

The slayer winced at the ear-piercing shriek that suddenly filled the room, echoing unpleasantly off of the tall, stony walls.

Larxene was heaving and gasping, holding onto her profusely bleeding shoulder. She screamed as she looked down and spotted a stake half-buried in the joint, effectively putting her arm out of commission. She threw her other arm up across her body for defense, knives in hand, as she furiously tried to pinpoint her attacker.

Bright blue eyes widened in surprise and her stance dropped for a split-second as the vampire's gaze finally settled on a bruised and bleeding Kairi, who had managed to stumble across at least one of their weapon stashes. The girl stood with her legs spread apart, her shoulders squared and determined, and strands of her matted hair in her face; she already held another spring-loaded stake with both hands, the tip aimed at the blonde vampire.

"Bitch," she snarled as she hit the switch, sending the wooden spike whizzing toward Larxene.

The vampire dodged and whirled beneath the stake, turning to target the redhead, who had already dropped the now useless hilt and pulled out a long knife.

She was saved from confrontation with the vengeful vampire by the same werewolf that had pulled her from the well. He caught Larxene's arm in his jaws and spun, twisting the limb violently in the manner of rolling crocodiles tearing apart their prey.

Her shriek was deafening. Wild-eyed, she managed to slam one blade into the werewolf's back, aiming for his spine. She stabbed again and again, managing to land several blows against the sinuous werewolf's roiling form. With one last yelp turned whimper, the wolf collapsed on the floor, earning a choked sob from the redheaded girl huddled in the nearest corner.

Demyx wasted no time, barreling into Larxene and heaving her away from the werewolf's motionless form.

It was harder to track her frantic movements now; Demyx could already tell that his eye was likely too far gone to ever heal properly, the gash running across it too deep and the tissue of the eye too delicate. But he was satisfied to see that she was heavily battered as well- one arm left hanging limp from the redheaded girl's lucky shot, the other barely functional after the werewolf's attack, her sheer exhaustion from being repeatedly assaulted by magic.

He pulled a stream of water from the pulsing, shaking well, nearly distracted for a moment by the smell of blood in it. With a sudden surge of resolve he whipped it in the blonde vampire's direction, catching her in the ribs and flinging her against the wall. Mercilessly, he struck her again and again with the long cord of water, knowing that each blow was cracking ribs and breaking skin.

He stopped before delivering the blow that would surely have separated her upper body from the rest of her, taking in a shaky breath to calm himself. She was unconscious, bruised and broken in a pile against a wall smeared with her own blood.

Demyx let the water splash to the floor, deciding that it was enough. For now. He turned to find the redheaded girl- Kairi, as Sora had called her- but she was no longer crouched in the corner.

With a low curse, the young vampire scanned the room; finding no sight of the girl, he began weaving his way back to Zexion, praying that the human was still holding up against the onslaught.

Sora slammed a stake into one of the last turok-han, pleased to see their numbers finally running thin. Two of the Palliata were down, most of their minions had been killed off, and he was closer than ever to finally reaching the root of it all.

The teen turned and found the cold, judging gaze on him again. His voice was hollow and contemptuous. "A pity that you neglected the well in favor of chasing me," he taunted, disappearing in a flutter of robes and reappearing on the opposite side of the room.

Sora growled and buried his fist in the nearest wall, frustrated as he realized that he was no closer to catching the vampire than when he had begun chasing him. Xemnas moved frightening quickly- faster even than Saix and Leon did. One step seemed to take him ten yards, much to the slayer's dismay.

Reluctantly, the brunet darted back toward the center of the room, only pausing to twist the head of a weakened turok-han from its shoulders before it could harass Zexion any further. The human gave him a grateful, if exhausted, smile before returning to his conjuring.

There was one last, fierce rumble from deep within the well, followed by churning water spilling over its walls. The fighting quieted slightly, the remaining turok-han backing away warily and the rest of the vampires looking on in varying degrees of horror, awe, and, in Xemnas' case, amusement. For him, it seemed the show had finally begun.

It was as if the earth below was heaving for breath, rocking the entire building. The ground groaned as the greater demon tore forth from the chasm, its first long and sickly sticky claws hooking over the edges. A throaty howl echoed up from the depths, filling the air with a cry that suited a demon breaking into a new world.

Even as the top of its head began to rise from the hellhole, strings of thick slime stretched between its many twisted horns and its dozen or so eyes spinning wildly as it surveyed the new realm, Sora kept his unyielding gaze on Xemnas. The vampire was staring him down, looking every bit the calculating puppet-master that the slayer now saw him as.

At once the massive head burst free, completely shattering whatever remnants of the well's wall that had been left. Dozens of yellowed eyes ringed the demon's head and snout, all standing out against its mottled red skin. The area around the well cracked and shuddered as the beast shook and rolled, trying to break free of both the cylindrical stone opening that confined it and the rapidly closing portal between their worlds.

Its very breath leaked with a slow moving green gas, drifting between its teeth and hovering in the air like clouds of poisoned fog. It swung its head from side to side, its numerous eyes fixated on the Slayer. Sora only spared it a glance, his thoughts still occupied by the Palliata and its leader.

"Slayer, it would probably be in your best interest to engage our guest, Zeohn," Xemnas said in a mockery of pleasantness. "Of course, he is not your only visitor tonight," he continued cordially. "We sent a welcoming committee downtown earlier tonight- just to keep your city on its toes," he said through a fanged smile. "They should be joined any moment now by one of Zeohn's peers. I believe Archal is taking the scenic route through the countryside, however."

"I'm not here for _them_," Sora spat, barely sparing a glance at the seething demon. "I'm here to cut off the head of the snake."

"While your desire to fight me _personally_ is flattering, it is misguided. You are, in comparison to the great slayers of old… a weakling," he hissed venomously.

"So weak that half a dozen of the strongest vampires the Palliata has to offer came to see me killed," the brunet bit back.

Xemnas' eyes darkened briefly, and then he smirked viciously. He swept down the crumbling steps, his long, black cloak trailing on the ground behind him. Not a hair was out of place. "_You are a failure_. A pathetic mockery of the challenge that your kind are supposed to serve to us. You have managed to survive thus far by luck and a dependence on traitors of our kind, but that ends tonight."

The demon shrieked, as if protesting its summoner forcing it to wait while he spoke. Xemnas paid it no mind, his golden eyes locked on to the slayer as he slowly paced closer. "I _will not_ see you turned," the vampire growled, displaying more emotion now than Sora had seen at any time before. "And, though you are too inferior for me to even consider finishing with my own hand, I have selected one of the great demons for you to die against. Consider it my parting gift," he said with a false graciousness. "We usually do not kill slayers directly, but when we do… we make it memorable."

Sora considered the great demon, still working to free itself and descend upon him, and then shot one last determined glare at Xemnas before asking Axel for a weapon.

The redhead already had something in hand, as though he had known what the slayer would need before he even asked. Sora caught the spear that Axel tossed his way, immediately recognizing it as the one recently gifted from the naga.

In construction, it was very similar to the one that Anik had given him immediately after helping his people- a full six feet long, made of ironwood, its blade in a shape reminiscent of a teardrop. What Anik's spear had lacked, however, was the faint blue aura surrounding the blade and the faintly glowing runes carved all along the shaft. The runes seemed to gain life as his fingers passed over them, shimmering and touching the slayer with a magic that was deep and primal and invigorating.

He could feel its energy flooding into him, could feel his tired muscles renewed; there was a low thrum in his ears, and it was as though he could sense the weapon speaking to him. It called to something in his blood, letting his body know exactly how it wanted to be used, telling his limbs exactly what to do.

And he listened. Without an ounce of hesitation, without even slowing his pace, he met the great demon head-on.

Before his enemies or allies could react, he slammed the spear directly into the top of the beast's nose, pushing down until the tip came through the bottom of its jaw. With its mouth pinned shut, he caught yet another spear- albeit one without the ancient magic of the first- and furiously jabbed it into each eye that he could reach.

As much as the demon struggled, it was too restricted by the tunnel-like well it had come through to get out of the Slayer's reach. Its maw was securely sealed by the ancient naga spear, shutting in the noxious gas that it threatened to bellow; the most it could do was thrash, splitting the floor and further cracking the side of the well, but never managing to break free from the Slayer's vicious assault.

Finally, Sora punctured an eye and felt the flesh behind the blade give way slightly. With an enormous push, he shoved the spear nearly fully into the creature's head. He gave the blade a spin, and then a sharp cut to the side, and then a twist, before jamming the weapon in as far into the massive skull as he could.

Without pause, he dislodged the spear given to him by the naga from the demon's head and took a step back. He regarded the stunned and debilitated creature before sinking the runed spear deep into the demon's face, the blade moving through its hard flesh and bones as easily as a knife could slice through an egg.

The runes blazed as thick blood welled out of the wound, heating the liquid and causing the flesh to steam and curl. The demon screamed in agony as its blood boiled and popped beneath the surface of its skin, its body smoking as it was seared from within by the intense magic emanating from the spear.

Knowing that it had done all that it needed, Sora wrenched the spear back. He smiled to himself as he noticed that the weapon was pristine, not a speck of blood or gore marring the blade or shaft. The demon lurched, and Sora watched coolly as the listing, sinking body soon dipped out of sight and into the well, disappearing through the gateway that it had been summoned through.

The confrontation with the demon had, in total, probably lasted a minute or less.

Sora straightened and faced Xemnas, a part of his heart swelling triumphantly at the noticeable shock on the vampire's face. The vampire snarled something at Saix, his voice rough and the language foreign to the teen's ears.

With a brief spell and a soft glow of his hands, the feral looking vampire summoned an impressively sized claymore- the sword was nearly as long as he was tall, and the blue-haired vampire's gaze fixed on Sora with the intensity of an enraged beast.

Simply holding the massive weapon seemed to push Saix further into his frenzy; his fangs seemed larger and sharper, his form more hunched and wild. As he heaved the claymore above his head and prepared to charge the young slayer, an arrow pierced his side.

Marluxia and Xemnas both looked on in stunned silence as the berserk vampire sagged slightly from the shot, his zeal for battle temporarily overcome by surprise.

"Best to nip that in the bud," a gruff voice said from Sora's left. "He's about ten times worse with that damn sword of his," Xigbar said with a grimace.

"You would stand with them?" Marluxia cried suddenly, his face contorted by a mix of rage and disbelief. His two remaining allies seemed to share his sentiment, each boring holes into the eye-patched vampire with his burning gaze.

"I'm sure as hell not sticking with you idiots," Xigbar sneered. With that, he raised his crossbow and sent a bolt at Larxene's head, smirking as she barely managed to dodge it.

Sora turned and offered a teasing grin at the Palliata's superior, who was watching in stunned disbelief as his hierarchy of command disintegrated before him. Suddenly, the vampire let out a vicious snarl.

Xemnas was on him in a flurry, his black cloak billowing like the wings of a nightmarish bat. "You think yourself strong?" he accused in a whisper, his cold hand tight around the teen's neck. He jerked him sharply, forcing the slayer to drop the spear and pry against the hand on his throat.

A bottle of holy water shattered against the vampire's head, soaking his white hair and half of his face, which began to steam slightly. Xemnas cursed and turned to Riku, his grip on the slayer loosening just enough for the brunet to wriggle away.

There was a gargling scream from somewhere to their left, where Axel had finally been able to snap his jaws around Marluxia's neck. Blood bubbled out of his throat and mouth as the werewolf crunched down, grinding his jagged teeth to cut through the vampire's spine. All the while he made garbled pleas for mercy and the opportunity to join them, swearing his loyalty to the slayer even as Axel severed his neck, the screaming, grasping vampire quickly coming apart.

Sora could see Demyx nursing a fallen Zexion, and Leon and Roxas were aggressively pursuing Saix with help from Xigbar. The turok-han had vanished, the Palliata was gone, and Xemnas was facing them alone now, all of his minions and puppets and tricks used up.

The vampire seemed to know it, too.

"_You_," he snarled, looking at Riku and Sora in turn. "You will ruin _everything_."

Sora didn't even see the ancient vampire move- he was fast, almost invisible as he darted from one place to the next. Within seconds, Xemnas had sent him spinning, crashed him into a wall, slammed him into the floor, and then turned to do the same to Riku.

Sora was barely able to get to his feet and tackle the vampire quickly enough to keep him from slamming Riku's head into the stone floor a fifth time.

He rolled across the floor with Xemnas, a howl escaping him as the vampire sank his jaws into the crook of his shoulder with crushing strength. It burned like acid from the bite alone, but then Xemnas ripped away with enough force to take a chunk out of the teen's flesh. Sora let out a ragged scream as he felt blood pumping out of the gaping wound.

He scrabbled for something, anything, to use as a weapon. Finding nothing in arm's reach, he was forced to scratch at the vampire's eyes and ears, hoping to cause enough pain and annoyance to prevent Xemnas from biting him again. He had managed to tear off the tip of one of the vampire's ears before Riku was back again, kicking Xemnas off of him and swinging a small axe with the intent of taking off the vampire's head.

Sora tried to stop the steady flow of blood from his shoulder with one hand, crawling and searching for the spear that he had dropped, or a chakram left on the floor, or anything at all.

Xemnas leapt down in front of him, reaching the rune spear before the brunet could grab it and laughing triumphantly. His hair was wild from fighting, blood from his torn ear coating his white locks; he also sported a handful of cuts from his brawl with Riku, although Sora worried when he saw the axe in Xemnas' hand and no sign of his boyfriend.

The vampire languidly stooped to pick up the spear, smiling darkly, before snarling and hurling it as far as he could. He stared at his hand with fury in his eyes- his flesh still smoked from where the runes had seared themselves into his palm.

Sora grinned at the Palliata leader's misfortune and shot up, catching the vampire under the chin with a sharp blow that sent him reeling, if more from shock rather than actual harm.

In the brief opening left by his attack, Sora ran for a stash of weapons, quickly grabbing the first thing his fingers touched- a stake. He wheeled to find the vampire and was alarmed to find him fighting an already battered Riku, Axel's slumped form and a weakly moving Demyx laying only some feet away from the two.

Sora leapt on the vampire from behind, attempting to jam the stake into his chest. Xemnas merely shook him off, shoving him back with enough force to send him sprawling into a wall. The teen was woozy, both from blood loss and the collision, but he scrambled out of the rubble with a haggard determination.

He was halfway to Xemnas when he saw the vampire turn, meeting his eyes with the most vindictive look that Sora had ever seen. He felt tears prick his eyes instantly; there was no mistaking that kind of malice or what it meant.

With a cruel smile, Xemnas turned and swung the axe up in an arc, catching a weary Riku square in the stomach. The young vampire's eyes widened in pain and astonishment as he was lifted off of the ground by the sheer force of the blow, the blade slicing up his abdomen until it caught on the base of his ribcage.

Xemnas yanked the axe out roughly, splattering the ground with Riku's blood. While he gasped on the ground, writhing and trying to hold his stomach closed, the ancient vampire prepared another swing- one meant to decapitate.

Sora collided with Xemnas with the force of a tidal wave, implacable and undeterrable.

For a moment, the stake was forgotten, left sitting on the ground beside them as he gave himself over to his rage. He took the vampire's head in his hands and slammed it into the stone floor, each crack of bone against rock only serving to fuel his fury. All he could think of was throttling Xemnas, choking him, flaying him open and then pouring holy water into every crack and crevice that he could find. He punched him repeatedly in the mouth, unheeding of his knuckles as they grew bloody and the skin was shredded into ribbons by the vampire's fangs. He didn't stop until he felt teeth give way beneath his fist.

As the vampire's cold, hard hands reached to push him off, Sora set to snapping the vampire's fingers, not even paying attention to the bloody howls that it earned. He scraped and tore at the vampire's face and chest with a sharp piece of stone that had separated from the floor when Xemnas's head was smashed against it. He jabbed it deep into the crook of the vampire's neck, the same delicate spot where Xemnas had viciously bitten him, feeling extremely pleased as blood spurted out around the rock.

Then in a moment of clarity, he grabbed the axe- it was still coated in Riku's blood, sending a fresh surge of fury coursing through the brunet. He swung down, growling in frustration as the blade was stopped an inch into the vampire's throat.

Xemnas pushed back against the axe until it was out of his neck, blood beginning to bubble and leak from the gash there. He groaned as he managed to throw it to the side, sitting up to crash his head into the slayer's and sending the boy sprawling backward.

He rose quickly, hunched and wild looking, one hand pressed against his throat to stanch the bleeding.

Sora staggered up as well, holding the recently rediscovered stake firmly in hand as he lunged at the vampire again. They both moved more weakly now, fighting just to stay upright.

Sora grew increasingly aggravated as Xemnas managed to dodge nearly every strike he made, the stake never getting more than an inch into the vampire's flesh before he slipped away, or kicked the slayer hard enough to gain a bit of distance between them.

Sora darted after the vampire again, ready to pursue him when he inevitably ducked and skirted away; but this time, Xemnas met him head on. The slayer gasped quietly as he found himself embroiled in a close struggle, the vampire trying to wrestle his stake away from him.

Long seconds passed, neither able to gain the upper hand on the other.

"I hate you," Sora whispered, more venom in each word than he had thought possible. He hissed as Xemnas dug his thumb into one of his wounds, the pain almost wrenching enough to make him let go.

"Because I killed your lover?" the vampire spat, a crooked, leering smile twisting his bleeding lips.

"He isn't-"

"He _just_ passed, Slayer," the vampire cooed, his cold, golden eyes briefly staring somewhere past the teen's right shoulder. "And you missed it," he added in a venomous hiss, his eyes entirely too gleeful for the situation.

Sora's heart fell. He was certain it had disappeared as well, because all he could feel at the moment was an empty pressure in his chest. He was too frightened to turn and look for himself, unable to stop imagining that he would see just ash and dust surrounded by blood.

With a quick, powerful backhand to the face, Sora was sent stumbling back. Xemnas straightened, once again appearing certain of his victory.

"You have failed all of them," he chuckled, sweeping back his blood-matted hair triumphantly. "Foolish human! Your kind is _too_ easy to manipulate. Your precious lover still clings to existence," he said with a derisive laugh. "He will get to see you die like the-"

Xemnas went silent at the faint sound of something whizzing through the air, appearing alarmed until he saw Sora wince and sway unsteadily as one leg began to pour blood. He stumbled and teetered, trying to remain on guard against the vampire but barely able to keep from crumpling to the floor.

The leader of the Palliata chuckled, the noise low and scathing, as he traced the weapon's path back to the redheaded girl crouching in the corner. Her hands were over her mouth and tears streamed down her face as she stared at what she had done.

"You're still live, girl? And you aid your saviors by striking them with their own weapons," he mused. "Perhaps when I am finished with disposing of these traitors, I will turn you. A fitting end to the night," he murmured, his gaze drifting back to Sora as he toyed with the stake, "as I will need to… rebuild my ranks," he added, disdainfully glancing at the corpses around him.

In two steps he had closed in on the slayer, smiling as he drove Sora's stake into the teen with enough force to send him to the floor. The impact was enough to shock the brunet, the pain from the intense, focused blow like that of a bullet hitting a Kevlar jacket- but rather than the piercing, spine-severing stab that he had every reason to expect, Sora felt the pressure slip to the side. The stake tip tore through his clothing and dug deeply into his flesh, but rather than burrowing straight through and into his organs, it kept moving, the weapon dragging through the skin and muscle over his rib cage, leaving a wide gash rather than a deep stab.

"This is the price to be paid for challenging us," Xemnas announced to the room, though it was largely empty.

With no one left to watch him, no one of importance to challenge him, he openly swayed, one hand firmly against the slowly leaking gash in his throat.

Sora watched Xemnas' unsteady movement as he slowly meandered away, appearing torn between finding where the girl had scampered off to now and looking for Saix, if he still existed. Sora's satisfaction grew as he noticed that blood loss was getting to the ancient vampire- the back of his head was thoroughly soaked, a long trail of red ran from his neck to his foot, and the wound in his shoulder was drenched.

The slayer took a deep, quiet breath and laid still, moving imperceptibly slowly as he grasped the stake in hand and waited, praying silently that Riku could hold on long enough for this to be over.

Xemnas was weakened. He wasn't thinking clearly. Sora had no doubt that at any other time, the vampire would have realized his mortal strike had not had its intended effect. But he was ambling, oblivious to the slayer still watching him.

The vampire turned back on his heel, wavering slightly from the motion.

Sora kept his eyes lightly closed so that he could make out shadows and movement from beneath his eyelashes. He could feel the vampire coming closer, knowing that he was desperately in need of blood to replenish what had been lost and apparently had given up on eating Kairi.

Sora waited. It was the hardest thing, lying there as still as possible and just _waiting_. But finally he felt the trembling vampire clamber on top of him, seeking out his already bleeding wounds, as his fangs had been knocked out by the slayer earlier.

Before he touched the tip of his tongue to the sluggish flow of blood from the teen's shoulder, he paused. Xemnas had lived a long time, even for a vampire, and considered himself above being truly fazed or stunned at this point. There was little that he hadn't seen or done, little that he did not already know.

But he went stock still as he saw the silver chain and pendant that had slipped out of the human's shirt when he fell. It was subtle- but then, most of the ancient relics gifted to the vampires by the First were. Xemnas felt his chest heave uncontrollably for probably the first time in a thousand years. It was such a base reaction, a physical response to the sheer proximity to the crown, the unfathomable _luck_ of finding it here.

In a way, the vampire realized, it was good that his followers had been killed off. Otherwise, he would have had to do it himself. He extended a shaky hand toward the deceptively small, ordinary-looking piece of metal; the closer he got to it, the more he recognized the sensation and power of it as something akin to the holy grail of his kind.

"Oblivion," he whispered with reverence, feeling, down to the very bottom of whatever of his soul was left, that this was his destiny. It had all come to pass solely for this, the moment when he could truly achieve the goal of all that became vampires- immortality without limit. His fingertips were just centimeters away from the legendary crown when the vampire suddenly felt a peculiar pressure in his chest.

It was as though his heart had been hooked and then ripped away, leaving only a vortex of _nothing_ where it should have been. It was an empty feeling, devoid of even the cold that he had grown used to. He stared at the human, licking his lips slowly, already beginning to feel his body dying all over again.

Sora shuddered at the vampire's stare. Golden eyes continued to bore into him even as the skin around them began to take on the appearance of ashy sandpaper, an almost palpable _intent_ behind them. He would have preferred Xemnas to lash out, to berate him, to curse him, to scream, to sob, _anything_. Anything would have been better that the slow, quietness of the moment as the ancient vampire's form decayed and dried into dust.

It was only at the last second that Xemnas's stare left the teen's face, instead dropping to gaze longingly at his necklace before his eyes, too, withered into nothing and then fell into ash and dust with the rest of him.

Sora could breathe again. He rolled onto his stomach and crawled toward Riku, coughing at the remains of Xemnas that still lingered in the air. The silver-haired vampire was deathly still, only his eyes showing any signs of life. His gaze slowly followed the brunet as he came closer, telling Sora everything that the vampire could not physically say.

The teen sat on his knees, unsure of what to do. The last time Riku had been grievously injured they had had the naga there to help, dozens of swift, skilled hands to piece him back together. Now there was only Sora, trying his best to wipe his own blood into the vampire's mouth and hold the long, deep slice up his abdomen together.

He recalled the last thing that Xemnas had said, a word that had sparked something within him. Sora wasn't sure if it was an epiphany or just his mind growing less and less coherent as he slowly succumbed to his numerous injuries, but he slipped his necklace off and carefully lifted Riku's head to put it on him.

The slayer waited, feeling hot tears streaming down his cheeks, for something to happen. But none of his cuts sealed, and his splintered bones and bruises weren't set right. None of his blood reversed its flow and returned to his body. Riku's eyes were still on him, hopeful, and Sora didn't know what to do.

He was grateful as another presence joined them, his red-ringed eyes meeting hers and asking for direction.

Kairi had settled down on the other side of the vampire, placing her hands on the enormous slice up his middle to assist in holding it shut.

"I found these in one of the hiding places with all the s-swords and stuff," she said shakily, trying to wipe her nose on her shoulder. She gestured with a jerk of her head toward a number of bottles she had dumped on the ground. There were a number of long, tattered strips of cloth as well. "I found some scraps," she explained. "Maybe we can wrap him really tight. Tourniquet. I-is any of that stuff medicine?"

Sora nodded and found one of the familiar bottles of white-green powder from the naga. He scooped a handful into his mouth, grimacing at the taste, and put his arm over the vampire's mouth so that one of his cuts dripped blood down into Riku's slightly parted mouth.

While he tried to replenish the vampire's lost blood, Kairi carefully wound the strips of cloth around his middle, tying them tightly to staunch the flow and hold the wound closed. As soon as she finished she apologized for the sloppy work in addition to shooting Sora in the leg, burying her face in her red-stained hands.

The slayer laughed softly and thanked her, then asked her to try and check on the others.

Sora watched while she tended to Axel and Demyx and Zexion, checking their pulses and slowly dragging each of them onto clean stretches of floor to wrap up any large wounds they had.

"I'm going to go look for the guy that carried me out of the well," she told Sora after finishing with the three. "He must have crawled away somewhere," she said worriedly, looking to the crimson-stained spot on the floor where he had fallen while fighting Larxene.

"Be careful," Sora advised, glancing around the room worriedly.

"It's funny," the girl said with a nervous laugh as she passed him. "I don't know what could really scare me at this point." She padded out one of the stone entryways, stepping carefully to avoid broken glass and small rocks as she followed a faint trail of smeared blood.

Sora sighed, worrying for his old classmate before looking back at Riku. He had no great expectations for the vampire's healing- it would certainly take far longer for him to recovery from this than the time he had been struck by Rangarok, if he fully recovered at all- but he hoped that his blood would help repair the vampire fast enough that moving him before dawn wouldn't be so dangerous.

After another ten minutes or so of careful feeding, Sora was able to breathe easier. Riku had regained enough strength to clamp his mouth to his arm and draw blood for himself, though he sucked slowly and weakly.

He didn't keep track of the passage of time- could not have. Only this moment mattered, and as far as Sora was concerned, it was all that had ever been. He didn't want to dwell on what had just happened or consider the immediate future. His mind swam at the prospect. But _this_- this was manageable, if painful.

Eventually, the sound of hurried footsteps on stone forced him out of that line of thinking. He was jolted back to the present, unable to block out the rest of the world any longer.

"Leon! Roxas," he said with a relief that almost brought him to tears. "I… I've been trying," he said softly, shivering as he cradled Riku's head in his lap.

"Sora," Roxas said with wide eyes. "You look terrible. Stop feeding him at once," the vampire said sharply, immediately but tenderly separating the slayer and the vampire from each other.

"He needs it!" Sora cried, trying to shove the blond away but finding that his arms were too slow and heavy to do much with.

"You're so weak, Sora," the vampire said in alarm, noticing that the teen could barely raise a hand against him. "You're lucky your heart hasn't stopped! You've barely any blood left in you for _you_," he spat, eyeing the empty bottle of blood-replenishing powder.

"Roxas-"

"Listen to him, Sora," Leon warned from his place beside Demyx. "Rest now. We'll handle everything. You've done enough," he added softly, his eyes gentle as he again gave him the order to rest.

Sora was startled at how easy it was to listen. He was laid down beside Riku, a wad of cloth shoved under his head for comfort's sake. He was tired to the bone and all he could feel in every direction was _ache_.

The teen let his eyes slip shut but fought sleep; he strained his ears to listen, finding the voices of his family the most comforting thing in the world right now.

"No, he'll need more than that," he heard Roxas say quickly.

Mumbling from Leon.

"I can't believe it." Xigbar's voice, only more gravelly than usual and without any of its typical teasing.

"Get over here and put your hand on this," was Roxas again.

Sora could feel the vibrations through the floor as the old vampire made his way over. "Xemnas is gone. Marluxia, Vexen, Larxene. It's… unbelievable."

"Demyx didn't kill Larxene, did he?" came Roxas' surprised voice.

"No, I did." Leon's familiar bass.

"Who was the other werewolf? Where'd that guy go?" Xigbar asked.

"Not sure," Roxas replied.

"I still can't believe it," Xigbar was saying. "This is… world changing stuff. What is Sephiroth gonna think about all this?"

Sora could still hear, but now the words were all melding together, becoming an endless string of sounds that he couldn't decipher. His eyelids were too heavy to lift, his mind too exhausted to process any more stimuli. The brunet turned his head fitfully, trying to fight off the growing pull of sleep.

A hand ran across his forehead, smoothing back his hair and then coming to rest against the side of his face. A rumble of words, indistinguishable but soothing in their warmth and softness, made the slayer sigh and relax slightly. Unable to manage another thought, Sora let himself slip into unconsciousness.

* * *

**There's more! I had more written for this one, but… I don't know, it seemed pretty wordy and like a lot to disgest, so I broke it up. I think one more chapter for wrap up and then an epilogue (or I'll just lump the family reunion in with the rest of the after-battle stuff). Either way, it'll all end up here in some lumpy form!**

**And I'm sorry if it's disappointing at all for those of you that have been waiting so long. :( ****I just… there are a lot of things I would do entirely differently if I could do this over from the start. But! This was the path I had thought out originally, as weird and convoluted as it is, so…**

**Oof, sorry if the formatting turns out all funky- a bunch of my stuff is getting changed in the uploader D:**


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